The books I read I do enjoy, very much; otherwise I wouldn't read them. Most of them are for review, for the New York Review of Books, and substantial.

Memory blurs, that's the point. If memory didn't blur you wouldn't have the fool's courage to do things again, again, again, that tear you apart.

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.

I never change, I simply become more myself.

How lovely this world is, really: one simply has to look.

Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality.

Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.

Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light.

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be

Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!

No matter where you stand politically - even if you're unsure of what your political ideology is - it is important to take part in the process of shaping our government.

Aim for the sky and you'll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you'll stay on the floor.

Things are achieved when they are well begun.

You should wake up every day looking for the trouble you can get into.

An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole sentence.

Can there be greater foolishness than the respect you pay to people collectively when you despise them individually?

A great chef is an artist that I truly respect.

I think I have between twenty and thirty commercials playing at present.

I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history.

Our guys have a vision of something bigger.