“My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus."[The Science of Second-Guessing (New York Times Magazine Interview, December 12, 2004)]”

“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilisation from destroying itself."(Interview, New York Post Magazine, September 14, 1958)”

“I remember reading a fascinating article in the New York Times Magazine once where this guy said... Every woman has the exact love life she wants”

“I think literature totally fails when it has an agenda. - From an interview on the podcast Starship Sofa, December 2010.”

“I've always loved science fiction. I think the smartest writers are science fiction writers dealing with major things.” – Associated Press interview, 12-7-11”

“So I went to New York City to be born again. It was and remains easy for most Americans to go somewhere else and start anew. I wasn't like my parents. I didn't have any supposedly sacred piece of land or shoals of friends to leave behind. Nowhere has the number zero been of more philisophical value than in the United States.... and when the [train] plunged into a tunnel under New York City, with it's lining of pipes and wires, I was out of the womb and into the birth canal.”