The belief that consciousness extends beyond death is surely to put more belief in the permanence of self, not less. That seems to me a comfort that you're allowing yourself.

You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

Time is how you spend your love.

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.

Don't confuse honours with achievement.

Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.

You are either born a writer or you are not.

He believed with all his heart that we should spend our lives in happiness and service, in joy and work, in kindness and in love, and he lived... and died... what he believed.

I'd like to take a long walk, to the edge of something.

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

Bare feet are the best shoes!

Why do you dwell on things that don't matter when there are so many things that do?

Donald Trump has said that his 15 percent rate would apply to all businesses. And if that's the case, billionaire real estate magnets will get a very big tax cut.

I forget, is freedom of speech when it's legal to say what you want or is it when it has no consequences for some reason?

Do you know how happiness begins? It begins with no longer being afraid.

What may create even more jobs is to develop more entrepreneurs, of course, ethical ones.