I’ve always thought a novelist only has one character and that is himself or herself.

The narrative was too constricted; it was like a fetus strangling on its own umbilical cord.

Writing is manual labor of the mind: a job, like laying pipe.

Violence is the way stupid people try to level the playing field.

The world is divided up into two kinds of people - those who look at their body waste in the toilet bowl, and those who don't.

I started all over again on page 1, circling the 262 pages like a vulture looking for live flesh to scavenge.

The professional guts a book through - in full knowledge that what he is doing is not very good. Not to work is to exhibit a failure of nerve.

There are two types of people ... the scrutinizers and the scrutinized

The point of a notebook is to jumpstart the mind.

Novels do take charge of the writer, and the writer is basically a kind of sheepdog just trying to keep things on track.

Because one has written other books does not mean the next becomes any easier.

Nature offers splendor and artistry for us to appreciate. Opening our senses reveals we are surrounded by magnificence.

The nicest thing about creating ideas is that even when you finish your travelling, they continue their journey!

You're almost always better off keeping your mouth shut, but don't let that stop you from popping off.

Which of these statements creates more anxiety in you: 'There is no God' or 'There is no money'?

Writers are nothing but beggars with a good line.

If we want to be comforted, we must make up our minds to believe every single solitary word of comfort God has ever spoken.

I live in New York right now but I'm originally from my daddy's nuts. We all are. Think about, we the lucky ones - we made it. You all are winners. That's the first race you ever won.

A tragic writer does not have to believe in God, but he must believe in man.

Pure suffering has a consciousness, a tongue, a heart all its own and even the memory of it is but a pale unreality when compared with the actual experience.

Whoever truly worships the gods loves their priests.