It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age: when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.

A pier is a disappointed bridge; yet stare at it for long enough and you can dream it to the other side of the Channel.

Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.

The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.

The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly.

The land of embarrassment and breakfast.

When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.

History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.

What is the easiest, the most comfortable thing for a writer to do? To congratulate the society in which he lives: to admire its biceps, applaud its progress, tease it endearingly about its follies.

Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still.

The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of life.

Unless you change who you are now, you'll never get what you want. If you change who you are and how you are, then you’ll get what you want.

Fracture lines etch the surface of the glass box as if a body fell from the sky and landed on it. He doesn't hear the impact, can't smell the blood.

Don't you wish we all lived in black light.... for one thing, it would mean an end to toothpaste as we know it

Language is a very complicated thing, and that's one of the reasons why I like making photographs.

Canada is like a nice family living over a biker bar . . . They keep telling the downstairs neighbors to keep down the noise, people are trying to sleep.

We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing.

Just once, I want to meet the villain in a cheerful, brightly lit room. Possibly one with kittens.

Of course, there are some people who behave rudely. Allen Ginsberg used to like to get up in public and take his clothes off. I don't do that, but I liked Allen Ginsberg. He was a nice guy.

Nobody, especially Vince McMahon, tells Stone Cold Steve Austin what to do, and that's the bottom line!

There is direct correlation between a society lacking in artistic vision to lack of social conscience, i.e., crime, poverty, and senseless, violent atrocities, materialism.