Obsession is the single most wasteful human activity, because with an obsession you keep coming back and back and back to the same question and never… - Norman Mailer

He felt a crude ecstasy. He could not have given the reason, but the mountain tormented him, beckoned him, held an answer to something he wanted. It was so pure, so austere.

I had my good looks, my blond hair, my height, build, and bullfighting school, I suppose I became one of the Village equivalents of an Eagle Scout badge for the girls. I was one of the credits needed for a diploma in the sexual humanities.

The difference between writing a book and being on television is the difference between conceiving a child and having a baby made in a test tube.