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

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

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

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

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

" I envy Jesus because he's dead. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

" This is why fiction is an art, and life is not - how much more affecting is the lie than the truth. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" What is your identity, and how do you know who you are if you don't have language? "

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

" I like to live in my own mind, regardless of everyone and everything, working out the intimate puzzles that are my stories and novels. "

" 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 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. "

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

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

" 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. "