One of my earliest memories as a reader - I don't know how old I was, quite young - was a poem of his, called "Fog," and I remember the first verse, "The fog comes / on little cat feet".

I like the construction of sentences and the juxtaposition of words-not just how they sound or what they mean, but even what they look like.

I think more than writers, the major influences on me have been European movies, jazz, and Abstract Expressionism.

We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.

As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive.

No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.

I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.

I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.

The most beautiful eyes haven’t been seen yet

that the grace of fable stirs the mind"...and..."that the perusal of excellent books is, as it were, to interview with the noblest men of past ages

As I searched for food perfection, and as I gained weight, I began to realize that the race for perfection in anything was the path to destruction.

...everyone goes home in the end.

Nothing will deter us from building the future we want for our children. What greater rejection of those who would tear down our world than marshaling our best efforts to save it.

Whenever you are afraid of something you are worshipping it. Whatever you fear, you bow down to and give it power.

A lot of artists are just really stupid about money, and it's really hard to find somebody who kind of thinks of shuffling money around and doing business as an art.

As I traveled from one country to another, no one knew anything about me. So I could be anybody, I could speak as I wished, act as I wished, dress as I wished

Why am I popular? I don't know. Is it a mistake? I should think it's a mistake somewhere.

We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended. It is an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order. [...] We take what we know a little too seriously.