I never base characters on real people. There are people who do that but I really don't know how to do it.

To know you will be lonely is not the same as being lonely.

People do not love those whose eyes show that they are somewhere else

The declared meaning of a spoken sentence is only its overcoat, and the real meaning lies underneath its scarves and buttons.

I have never begun a novel which wasn't going to stretch me further than I had ever stretched before.

I'm interested in where we are, where we're going, where we've come from.

Swimming always cleans your soul

It's like standing on the edge of a cliff. This is especially true of the first draft. Every day you're making up the earth you're going to stand on.

Good writing of course requires talent, and no one can teach you to have talent.

Nostalgia is something we think of as fuzzy. But it's pain. Pain concerning the past.

My greatest pleasure is to invent. My continual mad ambition is to make something true and beautiful that never existed in the world before.

Death is certain. Nobody can escape it. Then why fear death? Live till you die!

Learn to live together with other people

Israel is much worse than the original apartheid state.

There is competition in Zen. Let's not be ridiculous. There is competition in everything in life; being a winner in Zen means, competing and winning in the world of enlightenment.

You can get far in North America with laconic grunts. "Huh," "hun," and "hi!" in their various modulations, together with "sure," "guess so," "that so?" and "nuts!" will meet almost any contingency.

Misunderstanding women is a clear sign of scant virility.

The best way to be a good father to your children is to be a good husband to their mother.

I like to think I'm some savage realist.

God's existence needs to be established independently before he can be brought into account for causation; it cannot be assumed at the start.

I took a baby shower.