And what's the point of waking up in the morning if you don't try to match the enormousness of the known forces in the world with something powerful in your own life?

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.

Two things never mix: one is enchantments and the other is meddling with them.

Formerly, people thought that if matter disappeared from the universe, space and time would remain. Relativity declares that space and time would disappear with matter.

You must have been going very fast." "I was, until I hit the fence.

[Barack] Obama doesn't disappoint me, because all during the campaign he said, I'm a pragmatic, middle-of-the-road, compromising politician.

How's motherhood? It is absolutely wonderful. Oh, my gosh. It's truly indescribable and amazing.

Mathematics is the purest of the arts, as well as the most misunderstood.

Now let us bandy words no more... nothing is easier than sharp words, except to wish them unspoken.

The war on drugs has been a social and political failure. We need to encourage sport and stop encouraging drugs.

The law is not an end in itself, nor does it provide ends. It is preeminently a means to serve what we think is right.