The Mexican...is familiar with death. [He] jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it. It is one of his favorite toys and his most steadfast love.

Beyond myself, somewhere, I wait for my arrival.

Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone.

To love is to battle, to open doors, to cease to be a ghost with a number forever in chains, forever condemned by a faceless master; the world changes if two look at each other and see.

Deserve your dream.

A flower without a stem, is beauty waiting to die. A heart without love, is a tear waiting to cry.

Love is not a desire for beauty; it is a yearning for completion.

A civilization that denies death ends by denying life.

Every moment is nothing without end.

Whatever is not stone is light

To love is to undress our names.

The obstacles are distractions. Focus on the ultimate goal.

Working smart is harder than working hard. It’s just less visible, and we care too much about what others see.

Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.

There's a utility in the democracy refreshing itself on an ongoing basis.

I'm more focused on making a scene seem real as opposed to perfect.

Friends: people who borrow my books and set wet glasses on them.

The great advantage of a novel is you can put in whatever comes into your head - it has the same shape as the human brain.

Nothing is so high and above all danger that is not below and in the power of God. [Lat., Nihil ita sublime est, supraque pericula tendit Non sit ut inferius suppositumque deo.]

I had grown up during Vietnam. I had no connections to the U.S. military, and I had a pretty cynical default opinion about the U.S. military.

The goal is not to simply eliminate the bad, which does nothing more than leave you with a vacuum, but to pursue and experience the best in the world.