Pleasure becomes a value, a teleological end in itself. It's probably more Western than U.S. per se.

I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.

It can become an exercise in trying to get the reader to like and admire you instead of an exercise in creative art.

One of the things that makes Wittgenstein a real artist to me is that he realized that no conclusion could be more horrible than solipsism.

If your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything.

I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?

This might be one way to start talking about differences between the early postmodern writers of the fifties and sixties and their contemporary descendants.

How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.

Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.

In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.

Her immediate impulse was one of self-preservation. She was tied up in this somehow, she didn’t know why or how, but there was something waiting for her on the other side of this crowd.

There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent creative personality for a fighter. Anyone who takes that role must pay a price.

Jealously is more common than loyalty.

Some of the most profound realizations that I came to about health did not derive from medicine, but derived from surfing.

I'm a very independent person, I love being alone, writing and doing music and stuff.

With your own children, you love them immediately - and with grandchildren, it's exactly the same.

And I think Trump wants to change America to make it great again for a generation, not just for eight years.

God has positioned me just this way to be just like I am, to say what I say how I say it.

See what an atmosphere of holiness is here the pure air of the Ganga what an assemblage of Sadhus will you find anywhere a place like this!

Fear is a survival instinct; fear in its way is a comfort for it means that somewhere hope is alive.