I wanted to write a book that would leave open many riddles and mysteries, even to me. Of course in some cases I do know the answers, but in many others I don't know and don't want to know.

English is much drier. You can get away with a lot less. Pathos, lyricism, these are things you have to tone down if you want the English version of the book to work.

A neglect of one's sentimental education early in life could bear the most unfortunate fruit.

People who have experienced nothing love to tell stories while people who have experienced a great deal suddenly have no stories to tell at all.

When you translate the American writers who are best with dialogue into German - someone like Elmore Leonard, or Tom Wolfe, who's also quite good with dialogue. It's very hard to translate them well.

Also, whenever you have direct speech, and I don't quite know why, but it always gets better in English. Dialogue, the flow of dialogue, English just has a better way with it.

Exactly as we might ask God, and do ask God, to change our fate. The difference is that in the story the writer actually replies and in the end even changes his mind.

Nobody, said Humboldt, had a destiny. One simply decided to feign one until one came to believe in it oneself. But so many things didn't fit in with it, one had to really force oneself.

Sometimes the opposite of loss is loss.

...two thirds of all sorrow is homemade and, so far as the universe is concerned, unnecessary.

People have been raised in a morality that says, "If it feels all right for you, it's probably OK."

Democrats are fighting fire with fire. Our principled stance on Medicare and Social Security is absolutely no different than the Republicans' stance on no revenue increases without cuts.

God listens to Bach while the angels listen to Mozart.

France is the country with the highest taxes in Europe along with Sweden...something of which I am not proud.

If you look too closely at the form, you miss the Essence.

High school isn't a very important place. When you're going you think it's a big deal, but when it's over nobody really thinks it was great unless they're beered up.

I don't think happiness is necessarily the reason we're here. I think we're here to learn and evolve, and the pursuit of knowledge is what alleviates the pain of being human.

I was told I would become nothing. Now I am showing people how big nothing is.