Nothing bad can happen to a writer. Everything is material.

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you - it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists.

He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.

You can no more make someone tell the truth than you can force someone to love you.

Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.

The horror of being caged has lost its thrill.

Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.

I have a slogan I use when I get anxious writing, which happens quite a bit: ‘the ordeal is part of the commitment.’ It’s one of my mantras. It makes a lot of things doable.

When the whole world doesn't believe in God, it'll be a great place.

Because that is when you love somebody - when you see them being game in the face of the worst. Not courageous. Not heroic. Just game.

Poverty is spiritual halitosis.

I can't understand God and I can't understand myself, so there's no chance in hell that I'm going to understand you!

An angry man is again angry with himself when he returns to reason.

It was never important for a wedding to be about anything other than me and my partner. A big celebration was never my cup of tea.

You don't have to push or pull or fight or win, the struggle is illusory. Sometimes or rather, all times, you just have to be.

I'm from Los Angeles... I don't trust any air I can't see.

The worst... was what the Pakistani soldiers did to the Bengali women after their failed rebellion.

I have never given this ring, my soul, to anyone. Azrael has never had any part of this. This is the only part of myself that is truly mine, and now it is yours.” —Jack Force

Other people may not have had high expectations for me... but I had high expectations for myself.