No reader owes me anything - I am owed nothing for my noble efforts, because my writing was always unconditional, always coming out of inner necessity.

When I look at my old pictures, all I can see is what I used to be but am no longer. I think: What I can see is what I am not.

Home is where somebody notices when you are no longer there.

The perfect borscht is what life should be but never is.

Belief and delusion are incestuous siblings.

I am itching to criticize some well-regarded writers' works, but I am not doing it because I am perfectly aware that my critique could easily be reduced to envy or just plain meanness.

I gradually became aware that my interiority was inseparable from my exteriority, that the geography of my city was the geography of my soul.

I much preferred winning to thinking and I didn't like losing at all.

You don't want your neurosurgeon to have doubts about the meaning of it all while he or she is operating on your brain.

If you can't go home, there is nowhere to go, and nowhere is the biggest place in the world-indeed, nowhere is the world.

We knew - but didn't want to know - what was going to happen, the sky descending upon our heads like the shadow of a falling piano in a cartoon.

It is left only to God and to the angels to be lookers on.

I have no ambition to surprise my reader. Castles with unknown passages are not compatible with my homely muse.

Now the windows, blinded by the glare of the empty square, had fallen asleep. The balconies declared their emptiness to heaven; the open doorways smelt of coolness and wine.

Both therapy and friendship possessed the common denominator of discovering a self.

I simply cannot imagine why anyone would eat something slimy served in an ashtray.

I just like art. I get pure pleasure from it. I have a lot of wonderful paintings, and every time I look at them I see something different.

The vast majority of Muslims living here are peaceful citizens. Unfortunately, however, we also see religious and political fanaticism among Muslim groups in Germany.

Sometimes he sits at your feet looking into your face with an expression so gentle and caressing that the depth of his gaze startles you.

I am competitively aggressive. My dream since I was a young boy was to be an NFL quarterback. I am living that dream.

Don't always use PAIN that you receive as an excuse to GIVE PAIN.