To be a mainstream American is to live as an oxymoron. You are a good Christian, but you strain to remain dynamically competitive.

Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a certain built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men.

It's not a good idea to put your wife into a novel; not your latest wife anyway.

The platitude turned on its head is still a platitude

Hip is the sophistication of the wise primitive in a giant jungle.

I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.