We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly - spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order.

The crucial task of old age is balance: keeping just well enough just brave enough just gay and interested and starkly honest enough to remain a sentient human being.

To be perfectly honest I think that as I'm growing older I'm just growing more impatient. I'll be very happy if at some point people say 'Michael's grown wiser and softer in his old age.' But we'll have to wait and see what my next project is.

To write a story about New York that only deals with people in your age and socioeconomic bracket that feels dishonest to me. So much of New York comes from everyone bumping into each other.

The secret of staying young is to live honestly eat slowly and lie about your age.