I have a good memory for words, and when I come upon a word I don't know, I remember it, or try to - it's almost like a tic. I also just have a good feeling for how words are made and formed in English and the etymologies that give you prefixes and suffixes.

I abandoned my second novel completely. Writing 'Kavalier & Clay,' I had several moments of utter collapse. Same with 'The Yiddish Policemen's Union.'

As soon as I read that, it clicked: that's my theater of war. It was exciting to think that I could write about World War Two from a totally new place.

I was surprised that my wife thought it was a good idea, then again with my agent, another woman, then my editor, another woman - in spite of the fact that all three of them reacted positively I still have this fear.

I think that nothing teaches you more about life than death and dying.

Normally, if someone's legacy will outlast their life, it's apparent when they die. On the day when Alexander the Great, or Caesar Augustus, or Napoleon, or Socrates, or Muhammad died, their reputations were immense. When Jesus died, his tiny, failed movement appeared clearly at an end.

Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.

The Gross National Product includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and missiles and nuclear warheads... It includes... the broadcasting of television programs which glorify violence to sell goods to our children.