If you want to learn how to be happy, you have to know what is sadness first.

Translators are like ninjas. If you notice them, they’re no good.

My father - I once asked him what was his greatest achievement. He said his greatest achievement was that he fought in five wars in the infantry, always on the front line, and never hurt anybody.

According to Gur's theory of boredom, everything that happens in the world today is because of boredom: love, war, inventions, fake fireplaces - ninety-five percent of all that is pure boredom.

It's kind of a reflex for me to ignore my own wishes and think about other people first.

Rabbits are played. Nowadays it's all about the turtles. Tell them it's a ninja, they'll freak.

The one who swallows cactuses with spines should not complain about hemorrhoids.

Writing a story is kind of like surfing, as opposed to the novel, where you use a GPS to get somewhere. With surfing, you kind of jump.

For three months, a person sits and looks at you, imagining a kiss.

Most of the Jewish writer friends I have are American, and I feel closer to them because they're always obsessed with one issue - identity: what does it mean to be an American Jew?

Being ambivalent doesn't mean that you're a relevatist, that anything goes; it just means that you show the complexity of life. Life is always complex.

I sketched North America onto my crude and now crowded map, and Hao was astounded to learn that it was not a piece of Europe, as he had always assumed.

The manner of their living is very barbarous, because they do not eat at fixed times, but as often as they please

Things are achieved when they are well begun. The perfect archer calls the deer his own While yet the shaft is whistling.

I considered calmly that I was born to write.

My focus on 9/11 was on the victims - in the towers, in the planes - and all that loss.

The desert loves me. I love the desert. It's nice to be in the heat in Africa. I love it.

It is Love that gives joy to happiness.

I got addicted to the addiction book. I actually started developing all the addictions of the people in the book that I was writing about, without realizing it.

By manipulating queuing, by manipulating expectation, you can lead people to a fundamental confrontation, not only with themselves, but with the Other.

There are two distinct classes of men - those who pay taxes and those who receive and live upon taxes.