The human longing for story is so powerful, so primitive, that it seems like something not learned, but locked into our genes.

Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away.

A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk.

Finish the day's writing when you still want to continue.

i wish i was away in Ingo far across the briny sea sailing over deepest waters where neither care nore worry trouble me

I enjoy research; in fact research is so engaging that it would be easy to go on for years, and never write the novel at all.

It is a violation which has obsessed the tyrants of the twentieth century. They do not want simply to kill their opponents, but to liquidate them, to deny that they have ever existed.

However, the difficulties and pleasures of the writing itself are similar for a novel with a historical setting and a novel with a contemporary setting, as far as I'm concerned.

However, I began to submit poems to British magazines, and some were accepted. It was a great moment to see my first poems published. It felt like entering a tradition.

Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound, both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear.

As individuals, we are shaped by story from the time of birth; we are formed by what we are told by our parents, our teachers, our intimates.

If you feel afraid of magic, then you've been enchanted.

Happiness requires the ultimate sacrifice: to give up one's unhappiness.

The history of saints is mainly the history of insane people.

Art needs to stand for something.

Vegetables are organized bodies that grow on the dry areas of the globe and within its waters. Their function is to combine immediately the four elements and to serve as food for animals.

Computers, singing, reading, painting and gardening are my hobbies.

Music was all over my house, and all over literally my genetic house, and my house in the literal sense. So I kind of couldn't avoid it.

Stand-up was interesting to me at the beginning, because I was trying to parody it. My early stand-up was really Andy Kaufman-esque, and then I became the very thing I was making fun of.

I would rather sail and hit a rock than sit and rot in dry dock.

If you are not learning while you’re earning, you are cheating yourself out of the better portion of your compensation.