A novelist is, like all mortals, more fully at home on the surface of the present than in the ooze of the past.

Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations.

And the rest is rust and stardust.

Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards.

Mind you, sometimes the angels smoke, hiding it with their sleeves, and when the archangel comes, they throw the cigarettes away: that’s when you get shooting stars.

Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

The writer's job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them.

There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion.

I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.

Loneliness as a situation can be corrected, but as a state of mind it is an incurable illness.

I’ve lowered my character with a great deal of unwholesome reading material.

One by one the sands are flowing One by one the moments fall Some are coming some are going Do not strive to grasp them all.

Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.

I am astonished and surprised that someone could consider making a film about me without talking to me about it.

I have nothing but respect for the purist who won't work for the pharaoh. But I'm not that strong.

Giving children the opportunity to stir up life and leave it free to discover.

I don't have a mission. I don't have a torch to burn.

People were so hockey-oriented, hockey-minded, without being too critical. In Montreal, they got downright nasty sometimes.

I'm never going to be like, "Oh, this attention from women sucks." It's flattering 99 percent of the time.

Thy friendship oft has made my heart to ache: do be my enemy for friendship's sake.