A writer decides to follow some ideas and not others for reasons that aren't always clear to him. It's often a matter of intuition.

I like the construction of sentences and the juxtaposition of words-not just how they sound or what they mean, but even what they look like.

I think more than writers, the major influences on me have been European movies, jazz, and Abstract Expressionism.

We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.

As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive.

No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.

I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.

I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.

Is it not enough to shine, To know that friends are true?That love is born of friendship, And who you are is you?

Belief in God means Believe yourself, and you know who God is!

You shouldn't be in the music business if you're posing.

The thing I always say is that I wasn't going out reaching for roles, I wasn't fighting for roles - people came to me. They always came to me.

Of how many women might the history be comprised in those few words - 'she lived, suffered, and was buried'!

Singing is something that I'm always happy to do it and going in the studio I never felt any pressure. I just feel like I get to sing, you know. It's fun.

Turkey's true master is the peasant.

The United States in particular and the West in general should be feeling a little embarrassed about all that lecturing we did to the Third World.

Nobody should put out a record before they know what the street thinks.

I want to know the truth, however perverted that may sound.