I wanted all of her and resented other boys for wanting any part of her.

I guess my life hasn’t always been happy, or easy, or exactly what I want. At a certain point, I just have to try not to think too much about certain things, or else they’ll break my heart.

Fiction is a solution, the best solution, to the problem of existential solitude.

It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.

Integrity's a neutral value. Hyenas have integrity, too. They're pure hyena.

Nice people don't necessarily fall in love with nice people.

The personality susceptible to the dream of limitless freedom is a personality also prone, should the dream ever sour, to misanthropy and rage.

The Mekons were kind of like the background music of my life.

Depression presents itself as a realism regarding the rottenness of the world in general and the rottenness of your life in particular.

Reading enables me to maintain a sense of something substantive– my ethical integrity, my intellectual integrity.

Fiction is a particularly effective way for strangers to connect across time and distance

I have learned the novice can often see things that the expert overlooks. All that is necessary is not to be afraid of making mistakes, or of appearing naive.

I gave up drinking lots of whiskey and began to practice yoga and meditation. As a result I am not dead.

To be a man requires that you accept everything life has to give you, beginning with your name.

If Lehman Brothers had been a bit more Lehman Sisters ... we would not have had the degree of tragedy that we had as a result of what happened.

I have a small child. Being a parent takes a lot of time. People always ask me, "What movies have you watched lately?" I tell them, "Finding 'Nemo' ... 'Shrek'.

There are two great gifts which God, in his love for man, has granted from on high: the priesthood and the imperial dignity.

I don't have a favorite place to play.

Why do people build houses to keep the climate out, then cut holes in the walls to let it in again? I shall never understand.

It sounds like something on a very trite T-shirt, but life is what happens.

If the guidebook used to be critical, today it seems largely a celebratory adjunct to the publicity operations of hotels, resorts, and even countries.