117 quotes
The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country — and we haven't seen them since.
Matters of Fact and Fiction : Essays 1973–1976 (1978)
DELTON 4: He is morally retarded and, like a child, he regards this world as his plaything.…
Visit to a Small Planet (1957)
World events are the work of individuals whose motives are often frivolous, even casual.
United States - Essays 1952–1992 (1992)
I suspect that one of the reasons we create fiction is to make sex exciting.
At Home (1988)
Envy is the central fact of American life.
To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun.
Screening History (1992)
That peculiarly American religion, President-worship.
Matters of Fact and Fiction : Essays 1973–1976 (1978)
Half the American people never read a newspaper. Half never vote for President — the same half?
Screening History (1992)
I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.
Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.
By definition a bore is predictable. if you think you know in advance what a man is apt to say or do, you are not apt to be disagreeably surprised by him.
Julian (1964)
No one can tell another man is true. Truth is all around us...Truth is where ever man has glimpsed divinity.
Julian (1964)
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
People in my situation get to read about themselves whether they want to or not. It's generally wrong. Or oversimplified — which is sometimes useful.
What I've Learned (2008)
It is one thing to use text to illustrate a point one is making, but quite another to quote merely to demonstrate the excellence of one's memory.
Julian (1964)
I used to be able to summon up scenes at will, but now aging memory is so busy weeding its own garden that, promiscuously, it pulls up roses as well as crabgrass.
Palimpsest : A Memoir (1995)
In a nation that has developed to a high art advertising, the creator who refuses to advertise himself is immediately suspected of having no product worth selling.
At Home (1988)
By and large, serious fiction was the work of victims who portrayed victims for an audience of victims who, it was oddly assumed, would want to see their lives realistically portrayed.
Screening History (1992)
Happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing.
Nothing that Shakespeare ever invented was to equal Lincoln's invention of himself and, in the process, us.
United States - Essays 1952–1992 (1992)