I'm a novelist, so I can't write about ideas unless they're attached to people.

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.

Wasn't there only one respectable memento of a man worth keeping, the kind that draws Valentines and learns to spell Mississippi?

And whose rules will choose to you follow? God's? Or man's? You say you want to break the outmoded patterns and crate a new model? Then do it. That is part of your destiny, boy.

Do not use poisonous words against anyone, for words wound more fatally than even arrows.

The difference between the modern laws and those of the past is that wisdom is no longer a respected requirement and it has become secondary in importance to bureaucratic procedure.

I still believe in the need for guitars and drums and desperate poetry.

But with man, — by Hercules! most of his misfortunes are occasioned by man.

I've never really considered myself as being the best bodybuilder. I always try to let the people decide that. I just try to do the best I can do at whatever it is that I'm doing.

You can over analyze anything. I constantly have to tell myself, 'Sabrina, stop thinking.' There are people who are just analytical. It's part of your gene makeup, or too much caffeine.

I won't be able to live without my guitar, my phone or my boots on tour.

I don't believe consciousness is generated in the brain any more than television programs are made inside my TV. The box is too small.