The Room I wrote in 1957, and I was really gratified to find that it stood up. I didn't have to change a word.

One is and is not in the centre of the maelstrom of it all.

There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened.

All that happens is that the destruction of human beings - unless they're Americans - is called collateral damage.

The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember.

Language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you ... at any time.

Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.

I don't think there's been any writer like Samuel Beckett. He's unique. He was a most charming man and I used to send him my plays.

I never think of myself as wise. I think of myself as possessing a critical intelligence which I intend to allow to operate.

Don't forget the earth's about five thousand million years old, at least. Who can afford to live in the past?

This particular nurse said, Cancer cells are those which have forgotten how to die. I was so struck by this statement.

A session of boasting won't attract any real friends.  It will set you up on a pedestal, however, making you a clearer target.

...to imitate Western civilization in its spirit, its mode of life and its social organization is impossible without dealing a fatal blow to the very existence of Islam as an ideological proposition.

Everything is possible. The impossible just takes longer.

It is the starved imagination, not the well nourished, that is afraid.

Guilt and no guilt: these were the worst things. The only thing worse than the guilt was the fear of getting caught.

I don't want Democrats in the boardroom and I don't want Republicans in the bedroom.

Videogame players essentially choose whether to win the game or to die heroically. There's a certain glory in both.

I simply painted images of what was before my eyes; it is for others to find hidden meaning in them.

I definitely have been known to be grossly insensitive in many different ways, you can ask the wife. To speak without a filter sometimes and not being able to edit myself with much sensitivity.

It is above all man's social position that decides whether he will sublimate his sadism as a butcher, surgeon, or policeman.