If you're a writer, you have to be an egomaniac. You have to just believe in yourself, which is hard work.

In a competitive society, the thing people fear the most is love.

There are no manners left in America at all, because all you're doing is kicking the person next to you so that you can consume more, see more, and get more.

I am against all machines. It's no wonder that so many Americans go on dope when they have no other cultural stimulus than a television.

I think fame is something that you've achieved in your inner self that becomes known to others outside you. There are really very few famous people in history.

I don't think it's like eastern mysticism, which leaves the person whole. It's really another form of cancer, television.

No one looks at a television, and no one hears it. It's a poison.

I've never been in fashion. Not at all.

There's the world of the newspapers. They believe that what is happening is happening, which is so naïve. Because they're the first to turn on that.

I don't have any home. Everyone I grew up with, my family, are all dead. So I feel kind of like a ghost. I'm more interested in the past.

None of my books are best-sellers. In fact, the only thing that's kept me alive is the books that are in paperback. People find them, they like them, and they pass them on.

Of all our faults the one that we excuse most easily is idleness.

Pride is the direct appreciation of oneself.

Every fear, every night terror, every hour I cried for Liev, every fight with Sebastian is registered as a neat white scar.

We must distinguish judging from guessing.

We could go to monasteries. I could show you people who are very wise and they have great willpower, but they're not happy. They lack balance. They take it all too seriously.

An enlightened person is someone who shifts from one plateau of knowledge to another.

Why, if its going to be allright, do we see it getting worse every day?

She wanted him to stop, but more than that, she wanted him to go on forever.

If a film is not a success, then that's just the way things are. Nothing I can do can make a difference. I have stopped worrying about it.

A man cannot be a good doctor and keep telephoning his broker between patients nor a good lawyer with his eye on the ticker.