Discovering, for example, that as witnesses to your life diminish, there is less corroboration, and therefore less certainty, as to what you are or have been. [p. 65]

A pier is a disappointed bridge; yet stare at it for long enough and you can dream it to the other side of the Channel.

Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.

The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.

The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly.

The land of embarrassment and breakfast.

When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.

History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.

What is the easiest, the most comfortable thing for a writer to do? To congratulate the society in which he lives: to admire its biceps, applaud its progress, tease it endearingly about its follies.

Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still.

The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of life.

The soul that acquires the virtue of forgiveness won't find any more trouble. No matter what happens, he will know how to run his life ...

The same reason makes a man a religious enthusiast that makes a man an enthusiast in any other way: an uncomfortable mind in an uncomfortable body.

The first thing the male establishment wants to control is uterus and birth. You might call it womb envy. But even worse is the fact we are still using the male model of sexual response for women.

Idolatry is when you worship what you should use, and use what you should worship.

The same people who accuse America of coddling dictators are sputtering with bilious fury because we actually deposed one.

I hate bacon. Everyone thinks I'm insane... maybe I am. I don't like it at all.

To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again and once more, and over and over.

I married him for better or worse. I didn't marry him for lunch.

I don't know why people think I'm this ad-lib dude.

I told my doctor I wonna stop aging, he gave me a gun!