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" I do not want to repeat myself. I want to reach for something I've never attained. This is the excitement of art. "

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" I really like the power of stopping the laughter and turning it to horror. "

" Art saved me. It may sound corny, but it's true. "

" My job is to engage, entertain, work out my life, tell a certain truth. "

" I don't care if the audience is 600 Saul Bellows; I'm going to knock them dead with a comedy routine. I'm out there as a missionary for literature because, if people laugh and enjoy themselves, they might actually do something as bizarre as reading the book. "

" I think the way to be a writer is to experience things, certainly, and be open to things, but at some point to become dedicated to the craft of writing and to create a stable environment for that writing to occur in. "

" Look at Sam Beckett. Most depressed man who ever lived, but he sure was funny. "

" Sometimes, we find common ground; more often, we don't. "

" I can't read novels while I'm writing a novel, because somebody's voice creeps in. "

" I am mad for nature writing. I want to get inside the head of every creature in the world, even ants. "

" Life is tragic and absurd, and none of it has any purpose at all. "

" If we lose sight of the fact that writing is entertainment, then writing is doomed. "

" I worry about everything in the world, and it's just too much for anybody to think about, so I have my art as my consolation. "

" I hope to stay light on my feet, to work in many modes, to seek inspiration always, and avoid the fatal. But, as we all know, it is the price of life to burn out, both metaphorically and literally. "

" The compulsively readable events of my life occurred mainly in infancy, and it's been pretty humdrum ever since. "

" You want, as an artist, to be pushing yourself to do what you haven't done before. "

" Science has killed religion. There's no hope for the future with seven billion of us on the planet, and the only thing you can do is to laugh in the face of it all. "

" I've always written about heroes and wondered who they are. "

" Books are up against TV and movies and video games and a multimedia society that is so busy that people don't have contemplative time any more. I worry deeply about this. In fact, I worry about everything all the time. I used to be a punk. All I wanted to do was tear everything down, and that was so much easier. "

" It's true that none of my characters are admirable. But maybe I'm primarily a satirist, and a satirist needs to hold up what's not admirable. "

" I love performing in front of an audience. I like the questions; I like controversy. "

" I am a worrier. I worry about the state of our country, of the world, of our species. Every day seems to deliver a new nail to hammer into our collective coffin. "

" I tell jokes, and I have fun, but I tend to worry about everybody and everything throughout the entire world. "

" I think that's what art is about: to provoke you. It helps me make sense of a senseless universe because I become the god of the story. I create it, and I see it in all its lineaments in my own way and can control it - in a world in which everything else is out of control. "

" I think the best endings bring you back in rather than close things off with absolute finality. I'm not saying they necessarily have to be ambiguous, but we don't always need to know what happens when everyone wakes up tomorrow morning. "

" I never go anywhere without a book for fear of being stuck in line in front of the theater or strapped down in the dentist's chair and being bored witless. Thus, I read everywhere. "

" I envy Jesus because he's dead. "

" I think, if I'm doing my job correctly, I'm presenting a scenario for you as the reader to engage with on your own. I mean, that's what the best art is supposed to do. It's not supposed to be political. I think if you read all my books, you know where I stand, pretty much. "

" It's just my natural way - to be funny. I don't know why that is. But as I've said, humor is a quick cover for shock, horror, confusion. The critics hate funny writers for the most part. They think funny is not serious, but I think that funny can be even more serious than nonfunny. And it can be more affecting, too. "

" Sometimes if something is entertaining and amusing, people tend to think that it doesn't have the depth of something that's dramatic. I don't think that's true. "

" I'm enslaved to writing to the point where I sacrifice almost everything else. "