The Fundamental Principle that governs - or ought to govern -human affairs if we wish to avoid misunderstandings, conflicts, or pointless utopias, is negotiation.

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.

If you interact with things in your life, everything is constantly changing. And if nothing changes, you're an idiot.

I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.

Absence is to love as wind is to fire: it extinguishes the little flame, it fans the big.

There are four types: the cretin, the imbecile, the stupid and the mad. Normality is a balanced mixture of all four.

I love the smell of book ink in the morning.

To survive, you must tell stories.

But Italy is not an intellectual country. On the subway in Tokyo everybody reads. In Italy, they don't. Don't evaluate Italy from the fact that it produced Raphael and Michelangelo.

Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings.

We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.

In finding the courage and confidence to escape our cages and shine, we help others do the same.

Sports just happen to be excellent for avoiding foreign-language stage fright and developing lasting friendships while still sounding like Tarzan.

For my own health, I thought it was better to eat a plant based diet. I'm going to be 60 soon and I have boundless energy and I feel really good, so I'm all for it.

A writer's occupational hazard: I think of eavesdropping as minding my business.

If a car came through a window anywhere near me, I'd be freaking out for three days!

There isn't anything weird about my music.

My wound existed before me; I was born to embody it.

We think and name in one world, we live and feel in another.

The good writer seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself and all things.

Good acting should be invisible. You shouldn't be aware of the acting. It should feel real.