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

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" 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 envy Jesus because he's dead. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

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

" I read widely - for news, the arts, science, for entertainment, and the value of being informed - and, as a fiction writer, I can't help transposing what I learn into the scenario for a novel or story. "

" I can't fathom writers married to writers and musicians married to musicians. There's your enemy in bed beside you. "

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

" 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. "

" 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've never really been met with indifference, where they say, 'Who cares?' I think that's what good art is supposed to do. It's not supposed to make you feel good about your own prejudices and your own values; it's supposed to open you up in some way and get you outraged or make you happy or make you sad or whatever it's going to do. "

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

" The beauty of American law is you cannot slander anybody who is dead. This is not true in all countries. "

" 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. "

" Of course all novelists are egomaniacs and want to draw everyone to their fold just like any other preacher. The snake-oil peddler, the false prophet, all of this is fascinating to me. But I certainly hope that I'm more humane than that. "

" One of the reasons I've been able to be productive is that I want to do everything. "

" The novel is a seduction; a reader has to be seduced. "

" 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. "

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

" I'm not looking ahead joyfully to the rest of my life or the future of the human race. I've always written about man as an animal species among other animals, competing for limited resources. Our population is exploding. Our environment is dying. Science has debunked God. "

" This is the beauty of fiction. We may not like these characters, but we inhabit them. "

" 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. "

" Every story is organic, and every story finds its own ending. "

" Now that we all live in a bad '70s sci-fi movie, I am made to understand the tyranny of the machines every minute of every day. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "