Do you ever make silly mistakes? It is one of my very few creative activities.

In Mexico an air conditioner is called a politician because it makes a lot of noise but doesn't work very well.

Anyone can write one book: even politicians do it. Starting a second book reveals an intention to be a professional writer.

Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Well socialism is exactly the reverse.

Progress is man's indifference to the lessons of history.

Writers are frequently asked why they wrote their first book. A more interesting answer might come from asking them why they wrote their second one.

The tragedy of marriage is that while all women marry thinking that their man will change, all men marry believing their wife will never change.

When old men decided to barter young men for pride and profit, the transaction was called war.

I store away my experiences and don't feel really happy until I've found a way to write about them.

Whatever path you take, there is a league of bad road.

I think the reason working-class people don't write books is because they are encouraged to believe that only certain people are permitted to write books.

Filthy, mucky tools: filthy, mucky work. Clean, beautiful tools: clean, beautiful work.

Public office is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

I love fishing, any kind of fishing.

What makes me vulnerable is speaking up about topics that may be controversial to others.

There are a lot of colloquialisms in the Cantonese language that can never be represented aptly in Mandarin.

Wherever he saw a hole he always wanted to know the depth of it. To him this was important.

We live in a cold, cold world.

I always think about the streets because that's where I come from and that's where I'm going to die one day. That is my life.

Bad impulse buys make you feel grim, don't they? It's like having consumer Tourette's. I gravitate towards austere foreign-language film DVDs when insecure.

I'm not so much a rock star, d'ya know what I mean? I play Irish music. There's really no age when you stop playing Irish music. Even if I retired from playing onstage, I'd still be singing in pubs.