I was in enough to get along with people. I was never socially inarticulate. Not a loner. And that saved my life, saved my sanity. That and the writing. But to this day I distrust anybody who thought school was a good time. Anybody.

The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.

Only enemies speak the truth friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.

Fiction is the truth inside the lie.

What charitable 1 percenters can't do is assume responsibility - America's national responsibilities: the care of its sick and its poor, the education of its young, the repair of its failing infrastructure, the repayment of its staggering war debts.

Talent in cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.