Novelists don't age as quickly as philosophers, who often face professional senility in their late twenties.

Only in art will the lion lie down with the lamb, and the rose grow without thorn.

Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful.

Probably human cruelty is fixed and eternal. Only styles change.

My life looked good on paper - where, in fact, almost all of it was being lived.

When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable

Closure is a greasy little word which, moreover, describes a nonexistent condition. The truth, Venus, is that nobody gets over anything.

Perhaps there are other bits of my life that would take on content, take on shadow, if only I read more and thought less about money.

When you’ve lost all your play, guess what love becomes. Work. Work that gets harder every hour.

Love is blind; but it makes you see the blind man; teetering on the roadside . . .

Every 10 years you're a different person, and the really great books evolve with you as you get older. They're full of new rewards.

But one must do something about the past. It doesn’t just cease to be. It goes on existing and affecting the present, and in new and different ways, as if in some other dimension it too were growing.

I can't get sucked into that celebrity thing, because I think it's just crass.

I wanted to do a movie about being really good at something, yet being socially awkward and not as advanced in your personal life as you are in your creative life.

It isn't the ups and downs that make life difficult; it's the jerks.

We like to think that our parents made a decision to bring us into the world.

Before I begin, may I ask how old you are?" "You may ask." "How old are you?" "It's none of your business

Those experiences "made us who we are today!" It's just the way things are.

you have to do more than just kill time or time will quickly kill you.

I'm the luckiest guy in the world to be my parents' son.

Love of the limited self, the very limited self, is another name for human love. Love of the entire world is another name for divine love.