And really the purpose of art – for me, fiction – is to alert, to indicate to stop, to say: Make certain that when you rush through you will not miss the moment which you might have had, or might still have.

The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.

As I go to sleep I remember what my father said-that one can never be sure if one will awake. The way my health is now, this is becoming more and more real.

The things I write are for those who are willing to accept a new relationship between the reader and the author.

I am inspired by human sexuality. The act itself is mechanical and holds little interest to me.

Going around under an umbrella interferes with one’s looking up at the sky.

I look back into past history, the stored experiences or products of the imagination. I look no further forward than the evening.

Banks introduced the installment plan. The disappearance of cash and the coming of the credit card changed the shape of life in the United States.

I can create countries just as I can create the actions of my characters. That is why a lot of travel seems to me a waste of time.

The principle of art is to pause, not bypass.

Take a look at the books other people have in their homes.

Gatherings and, simultaneously, loneliness are the conditions of a writer’s life.

There are many types of participation. One can observe so intensely that one becomes part of the action, but without being an active participant.

There must be no worse punishment to a totalitarian nation than the withdrawal of capital.

In my photographs it is apparent that there was no posing at the moment I released the shutter.

The planned sit-down reception is an artificial forum where one is presented with a limited number of persons with whom he can hold a conversation.

Physical comfort has nothing to do with any other comfort.

Homelessness is a part of our American system. There should be nothing wrong with this condition as long as the individual is not sentenced to unnecessary suffering and punishment.

I collect human relationships very much the way others collect fine art.

I don’t fret over lost time – I can always use the situations in a novel.

Mapplethorpe presented the body as a sexual object, separating it from the humanity of the person. He added nothing to photography as a medium. I hold his work in low regard.

I do like to live in other people’s homes. I enjoy being a guest. I am an inexpensive guest. When one lives in another’s home he can enter into the psychic kingdom of that person.

I do not gather things, I prefer to rent them rather than to possess them.

Persons who have been homeless carry within them a certain philosophy of life which makes them apprehensive about ownership.

A novelist has a specific poetic license which also applies to his own life.

A trait which differentiated New York from European cities was the incredible freedom and ease in which life, including sexual life, could be carried on, on many levels.

In London, the weather would affect me negatively. I react strongly to light. If it is cloudy and raining, there are clouds and rain in my soul.

It is possible to stand around with a cocktail in one’s hand and talk with everyone, which means with no one.

If we reduce social life to the smallest possible unit we will find that there is no social life in the company of one.

It is not sex by itself that interests me, but its particular role in American consciousness, and in my own life.

And really the purpose of art – for me, fiction – is to alert, to indicate to stop, to say: Make certain that when you rush through you will not miss the moment which you might have had, or might still have.

Travel gives me the opportunity to walk through the sectors of cities where one can clearly see the passage of time.

I write for a certain sphere of readers in the United States who on average watch seven and a half hours of multichannel television per day.