He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you - it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists.

You can no more make someone tell the truth than you can force someone to love you.

Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.

The horror of being caged has lost its thrill.

Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.

I have a slogan I use when I get anxious writing, which happens quite a bit: ‘the ordeal is part of the commitment.’ It’s one of my mantras. It makes a lot of things doable.

When the whole world doesn't believe in God, it'll be a great place.

Because that is when you love somebody - when you see them being game in the face of the worst. Not courageous. Not heroic. Just game.

The danger with hatred is, once you start in on it, you get a hundred times more than you bargained for. Once you start, you can't stop.

While trying hard not to apportion blamesI end up apportioning all the blame on myselfI take several portions of the blamewhich makes my heart to be filled with guilt

I wish life were a fiction novel. Then everyone would have to do what I say.

Where the Magic Awaits: The Worst Becomes the Absolute Best

There never was one particle of... jealousy... in the heart of Hyrum Smith.

Rather than starting a new inferno in Iraq, our energies would have been better spent in extinguishing the existing fire in Palestine.

Where a pack of monkeys had traveled over the road, the smell of them lingered for a long time in the air, a dry and stale, mousy smell.

I'm a real big electronic music nut; when I was young I listened to musique concrète, German music from Cologne in the early 50s, all kinds of stuff.

I know many of you thought that I would be retiring today, but if I was ever going to announce my retirement it would not be in a downtown Los Angeles hotel with this fairly ugly carpet.

Ecology, like genetics, is not about equilibrium states. It is about change, change and change. Nothing stays the same forever.

He who has ceased to enjoy his friend's superiority has ceased to love him.