I know I'm not going to write as well as I used to. I no longer have the stamina to endure the frustration. Writing is frustration - it's daily frustration, not to mention humiliation.

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.

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

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.

It has been raining here for ten years.I keep an accurate record of time and can state this with no fear of contradiction.

To some lawyers, all facts are created equal.

Nature's fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.

Dumbing down takes many forms: art that is good for you, museums that flatter you, universities that increase your self-esteem. Culture, after all, is really about you.

What is taken away is greater than the sum of what was there. This may not be mathematically possible; but it is emotionally possible.

I like older boys, but they think, 'She's underage.' I'd love to have somebody in mind when I sing.

What do you do with a textbook case when no one's written the textbook?

We do not have weapons of mass destruction.

Philosophers there are who try to make themselves believe that this life is happy; but they believe it only while they are saying it, and never yet produced conviction in a single mind.

Exercise for the joy of feeling good and getting better. Eat right with the intention of fueling your body with the things it needs to perform.