I never know the endings when I write. It's a turnoff when you know the ending. You lose much of your incentive to write when you already know. It's like seeing a movie a second time.

Translators are like ninjas. If you notice them, they’re no good.

My father - I once asked him what was his greatest achievement. He said his greatest achievement was that he fought in five wars in the infantry, always on the front line, and never hurt anybody.

According to Gur's theory of boredom, everything that happens in the world today is because of boredom: love, war, inventions, fake fireplaces - ninety-five percent of all that is pure boredom.

It's kind of a reflex for me to ignore my own wishes and think about other people first.

If you want to learn how to be happy, you have to know what is sadness first.

Rabbits are played. Nowadays it's all about the turtles. Tell them it's a ninja, they'll freak.

The one who swallows cactuses with spines should not complain about hemorrhoids.

Writing a story is kind of like surfing, as opposed to the novel, where you use a GPS to get somewhere. With surfing, you kind of jump.

For three months, a person sits and looks at you, imagining a kiss.

Most of the Jewish writer friends I have are American, and I feel closer to them because they're always obsessed with one issue - identity: what does it mean to be an American Jew?

The most total opposite of pleasure is not pain but boredom, for we are willing to risk pain to make a boring life interesting.

The following ten throws went a variety of places. I never hit the target, but I was getting closer. Isabella was laughing so hard she wrote "Please stop can't breathe" in the dirt with her finger.

Keep faith, love and hope in your heart.

The real America that Whitman proclaimed and Thoreau decoded.

We've all got darkness inside us. And I've got quite a lot of darkness.

When one has a great deal to put into it a day has a hundred pockets.

Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into teams … but thereby makes us go blind to objective reality.

What the Depression teaches us is that when the economy is so depressed that even a zero interest rate isn't low enough, you have to put conventional notions of prudence and sound policy aside.

Presidents in the modern era who've had significant assets have usually put those into a blind trust with some kind of independent manager.

But I can tell you this: Nothing will happen up there that can duplicate my life down here. That life cannot be better than the one I've lived down here, the football life. It's been perfect.