Edmund White

Nothing lasts in New York. The life that is lived there, however, is as intense as it gets.

Paris can be like the land of the Lotus-Eaters. You can't leave.

I always feel I'm better known in England than I am here in the U.S. Americans don't read that much, and the French are very good at knowing the names of everybody.

By pouring money and goods into devastated regions, foreign aid workers sometimes compound the disruption and debauch the survivors.

As a young child my attention span was, as I remember it, rather short.