I've never made an outline for any novel that I've written. Never.

I like the construction of sentences and the juxtaposition of words-not just how they sound or what they mean, but even what they look like.

I think more than writers, the major influences on me have been European movies, jazz, and Abstract Expressionism.

We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.

As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive.

No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.

I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.

I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.

I spent too long worrying about what other people think.

Eat Chew Live' is not like other diet or weight loss books. There are no programs to follow, menus to cook, or products to buy, this book is about respecting how your body works.

My mother's father was from Brazil - a painter, and not a famous one - and was always broke. But he was a free spirit, a great grandfather.

And I reminded myself that it's easy to be grateful for the obvious blessings in life, much harder to be grateful for the tough moments and the lessons they teach.

I'm starting a new chapter in my [[life], and you have no idea how much that means.

Our odd idea of the classical world, the white Washington, D.C., is based on buildings that were originally brightly painted.

The motive force of history is truth and not lies.

You must not judge people by their country. In South America, it is always wise to judge people by their altitude.

I worry that we don't currently have a democracy in the United States. Instead we have what [political philosopher] Sheldon Wolin has recently labeled a sort of inverted totalitarianism.

Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible.