If they give me the bloody prize, why can't they say nice things about me?

Fictional characters are made of words, not flesh; they do not have free will, they do not exercise volition. They are easily born, and as easily killed off.

In order really to write one has to sink deep into the self and become lost there.

All my life I have lied. I lied to escape, I lied to be loved, I lied for placement and power; I lied to lie. It was a way of living; lies are life's almost-anagram.

The past beats inside me like a second heart.

If I was asked to say what was the greatest invention of human beings, I would say the sentence.

Everything we do is tinged with the knowledge that this may be the last time that we will do this, and that makes what we're doing incredibly sweet.

We carry the dead with us only until we die too, and then it is we who are borne along for a little while, and then our bearers in their turn drop, and so on into the unimaginable generations.

To take possession of a city of which you are not a native you must first fall in love there.

For memory, we use our imagination. We take a few strands of real time and carry them with us, then like an oyster we create a pearl around them.

A man is not much if he can't depend on himself, and nothing if others can't depend on him.

Don't let anything be too much for you

I'd like to tell you some jokes now but you'd only laugh.

Once you want something, everything changes.

Even if security from the cradle to the grave could eliminate [all] the risks of life, it would [still] be a dead hand on the creative spirit of the American people.

So, for me the town hall meetings are really an opportunity to engage in two-way dialogue with people, and they've been very helpful.

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself.

I'm an optimistic agnostic. I think the second we die, within a matter of seconds, everybody else arrives, and that's the party, and you live your hell on earth.

Our flag represents every American and it should not be hidden away as a result of property agreements.

What I want to do and what I do are two separate things. If we all went around doing what we wanted all the time, there'd be chaos.

If I’m committed, there is always a way.