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

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" 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 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

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

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

" I'm just kind of fascinated by how we can deny that we are animals and what our impact on the other animals is like, and how quixotic we can be in trying to assess what we've done in trying to correct it. "

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

" As humans, we all want our own island. Of course, the truth is, we're never going to get it. "