No democracy is born perfect, and none ever gets to be perfect. Yet democracy is superior to authoritarian and totalitarian regimes because, unlike them, democracy is perfectible.

Memory is a snare, pure and simple; it alters, it subtly rearranges the past to fit the present.

Prosperity or egalitarianism -- you have to choose. I favor freedom -- you never achieve real equality anyway: you simply sacrifice prosperity for an illusion.

Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life.

Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella." (spoken by character in a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa)

The secret to a masterpiece is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.

You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.

Its easy to know what you want to say, but not to say it

Writers are the exorcists of their own demons.

One can't fight with oneself, for this battle has only one loser.

No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing.

Choose to live...then live through experiences!

God’s Word is not a book of human ideas . . . it is given to us by [God] to teach us how to live.

You're not challenging anyone else but yourself. I'd like to have a 300-pound bench, 500-pound deadlift, and a 400-pound squat.

I've always had a special relationship with the U.K. fans, because even when I wasn't working they were very supportive.

The real world is much smaller than the imaginary

I was born in Costa Rica and we moved to America where it was a whole new world for me.

Of all the uncertain things marriage is the uncertainest.

I think the most important part of storytelling is tension. It's the constant tension of suspense that in a sense mirrors life, because nobody knows what's going to happen three hours from now.

It is easy to get used to the morning news, habituated. But don't. The morning news is yours to alter.

I'm a big sports fan. College football is my favorite.