I was clever enough to know that John Donne was offering something that was awfully enjoyable. I just wasn't clever enough to actually enjoy it.

For me, a play is a form of writing which isn't complete until it is interpreted by actors. But it's still a form of writing. And so most of my time is spent thinking about how to write a sentence.

It's obviously a characteristic of human beings that we like to feel superior to others, but our problem is we are not superior

Who says one instance of writing has anything in common with another instance?

Even with my wife, I find sharing soup is hard.

I have been vain since birth.

Sleep: a poor substitute for caffeine!

I spend most of my time thinking about things like laundry and buying stationery supplies.

I'm not proud to be me, I'm not excited to be me, but I find that I am me, and like most other individuals, I send out little signals; I tell everyone else how everything looks from where I am.

Patriotism is considered to be an emotion a person ought to feel. But why? Why is it nobler to love your own country than to love someone else's?

I was making my living from a joke about my appearance that I didn't understand, and in a way still don't, because when I look in a mirror it doesn't seem funny to me.

You should have a personal link to your creator

When a boy's first romantic interlude is with Pheobe the Dog-Faced Girl, he feels a need to get out into the world and find a new life.

Love is the only thing that changes abstinence from a prison into pleasure.

I'm not a politician and don't want any part of politics.

There's people that like you and there's people that don't like you. I love it because I love the negative criticism because I always feel I have something to prove.

And verily for everything that a slave loses there is a substitute, but the one who loses Allah will never find anything to replace Him.

I wanted all things to seem to make some sense, So we could all be happy, yes, instead of tense. And I made up lies, so they all fit nice, and I made this sad world a paradise

So I'm running in the park on Saturday, in shorts, thinking this [warm weather] is great, but are we all gonna die? You know? I can't, I can't figure this out.

Before you came the world was prose. Now poetry is born.

An Englishman is content to say nothing when he has nothing to say.