Desire is never final, desire is imprecise and impractical [...]

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.

Sing a song of love with all of your passion and compassion. Let it reveal your inner beauty.

In our need to be somebody, we often forget that we are somebody.

I don't accept defeat as final. Only death is final - and even then I hope for a reprieve.

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that but the really great make you feel that you too can become great.

To leave a book is like leaving the better part of oneself.

There never was a time in our history when ignorance of current affairs could be so dangerous.

I think music should be scary. Music is an exorcism.

The ecological crisis is doing what no other crisis in history has ever done - challenging us to a realization of a new humanity.

Only you can decide what is most important in your life.

You save an old man and you save a unit; but save a boy, and you save a multiplication table.