The average 'educated' American has been made to believe that, somehow, the United States must lead the world even though hardly anyone has any information at all about those countries we are meant to lead. Worse, we have very little information about our own country and its past. That is why it is not really possible to compare a writer like Howells with any living American writer because Howells thought that it was a good thing to know as much as possible about his own country as well as other countries while our writers today, in common with the presidents and paint manufacturers, live in a present without past among signs whose meanings are uninterpretable.

In a nation that has developed to a high art advertising, the creator who refuses to advertise himself is immediately suspected of having no product worth sell…

I suspect that one of the reasons we create fiction is to make sex exciting.

The last best hope on earth, two trillion dollars in debt, is spinning out of control, and all we can do is stare at a flickering cathode-ray tube as Ollie 'an…

We are like ignorant shepherds living on a site where great civilizations once flourished. The shepherds play with the fragments that pop up to the surface, ha…

I heard that Gorbachev digs America. I'd be diggin' America too if I were raised a Commie and my only escape was vodka!

George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography.