I was too much of a Bronx kid to read Emerson or Hawthorne.

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.

The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.

In these times, a great leader must be extremely brave. Their leadership must be steered only by their conscience, not a bribe.

Revolution in Love’. Can you tell me what you mean by that? Do you want free love as against bourgeois marriage, or monogamy as against bourgeois promiscuity?

The glory of God is upon you.Arise in great might and chase your dream.

As far as Samson was concerned I was just another foreigner in pursuit of a lunatic quest.

After the evil spirit of a narrow Scholastic orthodoxy has been driven out, in the end seven much more wicked spirits return in its place.

Mr. Rihani is a man of ardent poetic temperament, a clever poet, and a man of unworldly ideals.

Comedy tends to come out of things which are quite painful and serious.

India and China are improving by leaps and bounds and it will be their chess players who will lead the revolution of the XXI century.

Thus, in pornographic novels, action has to be limited to the copulation of clichés.