I begin a book with imagery, more than I do with an idea or a character. Some kind of poetic image.

Every person has a range. In fiction, you get to be it all. I’m as much the men in my book as I am the women. I write how I write and there is no mission to stake a claim.

To be alive is to listen quietly while other people talk. That's how you learn something.

I was doing that thing the infatuated do, stitching destiny onto the person we want stitched to us.

I’d been listening to men talk since I arrived in New York City. That’s what men like to do. Talk. Profess like experts. When one finally came along who didn’t say much, I listened.

Danzon is my favorite Cuban music, played by a traditional string orchestra with flute and piano. It's very formally structured but romantic music, which derives from the French-Haitian contradance.

People who want their love easy don't really want love.

For me, truth cracks open in the places where things do not cohere. That's how life is.

It's amazing how life conspires to set you up with what you need.

A funny thing about women and machines: the combination made men curious.

I don't regard the real and true and authentic as something to claim as a moral high ground.

Don't ever have children, Tyler, unless you're ready to be afraid everyday for the rest of your life.

The human heart is the only thing whose worth increases the more it is broken.

I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.

I think that people don't necessary fight with or aren't necessarily beaten by weapons, but it' through their minds and what they think they can do.

I work for a few at home who are devoted. People who are up now. Either they have some sort of bladder problem or they're extremely drunk. This is my crowd, these are the people I hope to get.

My desire is to set up a situation to which I take you and let you see. It becomes your experience.

If you release me today, I'll preach tomorrow.

Dead souls dream only of death. Small dreams for small men. It is life that expands to fill worlds. Life is your master, or death is

In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to question. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us.

A sincere seeker knows what his goal is: the highest Truth. He will not delay his journey. In spiritual life, we aspire for the highest Truth, for God, nothing else.