My mother studied English and drama at the University of Pennsylvania, where my father studied architecture. She was a great influence in all sorts of ways, a wicked wit.

I don't think you can talk about progress in art - movement, but not progress. You can speak of a point on a line for the purpose of locating things, but it's a horizontal line, not a vertical one.

The writer is one who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do... Writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how.

The aim of literature ... is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.

Endings are elusive, middles are nowhere to be found, but worst of all is to begin, to begin, to begin.

Any genuine work of art generates new work.

I believe that because I had obtained a wife who was made up of wife-signs (beauty, charm, softness, perfume, cookery) I had found love.

Yes, success is everything. Failure is more common. Most achieve a sort of middling thing, but fortunately one's situation is always blurred, you never know absolutely quite where you are.

The death of God left the angels in a strange position.

We are what we have been told about ourselves. We are the sum of the messages we have received. The true messages. The false messages.

The privileged classes can afford psychoanalysis and whiskey. Whereas all we get is sermons and sour wine. This is manifestly unfair. I protest, silently.

Luck is a strong horse

As the bee collects nectar and departs without injuring the flower, or its color or fragrance, so let the sage dwell on earth.

I am terrified of restrictive religious doctrine, having learned from history that when men who adhere to any form of it are in control, common men like me are in peril.

What was this big sound bite, though, at the time? It was, "Will Donald Trump and his supporters accept the election results." He won.

I don't think we should be deprived of the privilege of free speech

Worry is an unhealthy and destructive mental habit.

Whatever we treasure for ourselves separates us from others; our possessions are our limitations.

I'm always a little skeptical when I hear people promoting a film and they say it has something for everyone.

I'm fitter than I've ever been, I'm actually very, very healthy and I'm happy.

I like talking to myself and making patterns out of the letters of the alphabet on blank surfaces.