What I Have In Mind When I

All I Can Tell You With Certainty Is That I, For One, Have No Self, And That I Am Unwilling Or Unable To Perpetrate Upon Myself The Joke Of A Self. What I Have Instead Is A Variety Of Impersonations I Can Do, And Not Only Of Myself - A Troupe Of Players That I Have Internalised, A Permanent Company Of Actors That I Can Call Upon When A Self Is Required. I Am A Theater And Nothing More Than A Theater.

You Asked If I Thought My Fiction Had Changed Anything In The Culture And The Answer Is No. Sure, There's Been Some Scandal, But People Are Scandalized All The Time; It's A Way Of Life For Them. It Doesn't Mean A Thing. If You Ask If I Want My Fiction To Change Anything In The Culture, The Answer Is Still No. What I Want Is To Possess My Readers While They Are Reading My Book — If I Can, To Possess Them In Ways That Other Writers Don't. Then Let Them Return, Just As They Were, To A World Where Everybody Else Is Working To Change, Persuade, Tempt, And Control Them.

You Can't Write Good Satirical Fiction In America Because Reality Will Quickly Outdo Anything You Might Invent.

The Horror Of Being Caged Has Lost Its Thrill.

Fear Presides Over These Memories, A Perpetual Fear.of Course No Childhood Is Without Its Terrors, Yet I Wonder If I Would Have Been A Less Frightened Boy If Lindbergh Hadn't Been President Or If I Hadn't Been The Offspring Of Jews.