Start [writing] as close to the end as possible.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

There is a tragic flaw in our precious constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.

He didn't look like a soldier at all. He looked like a filthy flamingo.

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

Perhaps I am the turtle, able to live simply anywhere, even underwater for short periods, with my home on my back.

About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.

We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Destiny brought two souls, Jeremiah and Lailah Akita, to light the world with love.

And aren't we all just one heartbreak away from complete and total destruction?

High justice would in no way be debased if ardent love should cancel instantly the debts these penitents must satisfy.

The labor of self-love is a heavy one indeed.

If you want to experiment, do something temporary.

In this world it is very dangerous to be weak.

A form of art that I like is portraiture. I've been thinking about portraiture, and its relationship to writing and literature, biography and autobiography, and so that will be my next thing.

Good dialogue illuminates what people are not saying

Some people are meant to fall in love with each other, but not meant to be together.

It is a terrible thing to be so open: it is as if my heart put on a face and walked into the world.