“Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.”

“For a man to successful, not only must he succeed but his friends must also fail.”

“It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.”

“Traitors who prevail are patriots; usurpers who succeed are divine emperors.”

“You can't really succeed with a novel anyway; they're too big. It's like city planning. You can't plan a perfect city because there's too much going on that you can't take into account. You can, however, write a perfect sentence now and then. I have.”

“It is curious how little interested we are in the sexual desires of those who do not attract us.”

“Little Bush says we are at war, but we are not at war because to beat war Congress has to vote for it. He says we are at war on terror,but that is a metaphor, though I doubt if he knows what that means.It's like having a war on dandruff, it's endless and pointless.”