As a young teenager I looked desperately for things to read that might excuse me or assure me I wasn't the only one, that might confirm an identity I was unhappily piecing together

Biography can be the most middle-class of all forms, the judgment of little people avenging themselves on the great.

The most important things in our intimate lives can't be discussed with strangers, except in books.

I think that there are empty ecological niches in the literary landscape crying to be filled and when a book more or less fills a niche it's seized on, even when it's a far from perfect fit...

I think sincerity was my sole aesthetic and realism my experimental technique.

Paris... is a world meant for the walker alone, for only the pace of strolling can take in all the rich (if muted) detail.

Tennessee Williams recognized that great theater begins with great talkers, and that great talkers obey two rules: they never sound like anyone else and they never say anything directly.

If I take a less defensive tone, I'd admit that I couldn't write today a very jazzy, contemporary look at America as I did in 1979 in States of Desire.

Ive always seen writing as a way of telling the truth. For me, writing is about truth. I have always tried to be faithful to my own experience.

I didn't want to write a biographie romancee especially since I already write novels, nor did I want to challenge the rules of the biography game, arbitrary as those rules might be

At certain crucial moments - an emergency or an opportunity - one must act first and think later.

To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

Let us not take what we eat for granted

Be patient, work hard and consistently, have faith in your writing, and don't be afraid to listen to constructive criticism.

I hear a lot of talk today about xenophobia. Is it really phobia if you have something to be afraid of?

Strategies are great, business models are great, but the reality is your music has to mean something to people.

Every single fighter I've ever been in with, including the guys who beat me, I have hurt.

I grew up in the kitchen, mostly with my grandfather, my mother and my aunt Raffy.

Christ died that we might live. This is the opposite of abortion. Abortion kills that someone might live differently.

Charity does not like arithmetic; selfishness worships it.

Ryan Reynolds and I can be doing a scene facing the camera and somehow our back and forth and our rhythm, we know when to stop and when to volley, when to make the sound. It's like music.