To be scrupulously honest, I only met Noel Coward twice in my life, and then briefly, but I heard so much about him at home when I was growing up that I always felt I knew him well.

Success was always critical to me. What it meant was winning enough praise and external admiration that I could feel myself to be a logical extension of my Uncle Alex, Uncle Zoli, and my father, in that order.

The first thing to be said about 'Prague Winter,' former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's new book, is that she very wisely chooses to confront early on in it her apparent surprise at learning late in life that she was born Jewish.

Curiosity is the best motive for writing: curiosity about the world at large, or about oneself.

That which is so universal as death must be a benefit.

Most Americans know we are in a mess, and as they look at Donald Trump, they believe he is the one leader who can reverse the downward death spiral of this nation we love so dearly.

The history of New Orleans was always a fascination to me - such a blend of light and darkness and plague and pleasure and hedonism and fear and death. It's just a very, very intriguing city. I have this strange love relationship with it.

There's no dignity in hiding from an undignified story. You don't want to die the death of 1000 cuts. Just get the whole thing out… the entire thing, every detail, answer the questions and move on."