All novels attempt to cut neural routes through the brain, to convince us that down this road the true future of the novel lies.

You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

Time is how you spend your love.

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.

Don't confuse honours with achievement.

Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.

The road to knowledge has no definite end to it. It keeps on going for however long your stay on earth is.

To make one good action succeed another, is the perfection of goodness.

The most decisive actions of life are most often unconsidered actions.

Today, we're very dependent on cheap energy. We just take it for granted - all the things you have in the house, the way industry works.

Sarah Palin's book is big, 400 pages. She wrote the book herself and agonized over every word, and so will you.

Despair is good. Despair can be the nadir of one life and the starting point of an ascent into another, better one.

The banks should give a full, fair, and accurate account of their financial positions and they are failing that test.

If you're going to come at me, come at me respectfully, and I will respond respectfully.

Michael Joseph Jackson's genius was the ability to be the raw article himself - the real article himself. He is part of the African American people who were marginalized.

It fulfils the purpose of Universities if they can find out ways of achieving those feats which haven't been achieved till now.