1. “It is enough merely to win; others must lose.”
2. “The four most beautiful words in our common language: I told you so.”
3. “Write something, even if it’s just a suicide note.”
4. “The media can’t get anything straight.”
5. “I don’t even read most reviews, unless there is a potential lawsuit on view.”
6. “It’s always best to stay out of other people’s divorces. And their civil wars.”
7. “Monotheism is easily the greatest disaster to befall the human race.”
8. “Gossip is conversation about people.”
9. “History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true.”
10. “A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.”
11. “The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.”
12. “The unfed mind devours itself.”
13. “Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.”
14. “Anybody who is stupid enough to want to be remembered deserves to be forgotten right now.”
15. “Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn.”
16. “Our form of democracy is bribery, on the highest scale.”
17. “He who is last had best laugh.”
18. “A racial or religious or tribal identity is a kind of fact.”
19. “Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.”
20. “The human race is plainly nothing in eternity, but to us, in time, it is everything and ought not die.”
21. “At any given moment public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation and prejudice.”
22. “Most of our writers tend to be recorders.”
23. “How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself.”
24. “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.”
25. “I think there is an instinct out there to rid us of our masters.”
