“New York is the place where they bind books and write blurbs and arrange the pub…” — Nelson Algren

Since I'm essentially optimistic, I can't imagine a world in which man is totally decimated or degraded.

I am against censorship. I don't think there is anything more stupid than censorship.

I don't think the isolation of the American writer is a tradition; it's more that, geographically, he just is isolated, unless he happens to live in New York City. But I don't suppose there's a small town around the country that doesn't have a writer.

I've always felt strongly that a writer shouldn't be engaged with other writers, or with people who make books, or even with people who read them. I think the farther away you get from the literary traffic, the closer you are to sources. I mean, a writer doesn't really live; he observes.