The novel is the dream release, the suspension of reality that history needs to escape its own brutal confinements.

I like the construction of sentences and the juxtaposition of words-not just how they sound or what they mean, but even what they look like.

I think more than writers, the major influences on me have been European movies, jazz, and Abstract Expressionism.

We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.

As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive.

No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.

I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.

I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.

Language makes us human

I'm not trying to be this cool girl. If you're trying to be something you're not, it's slowly going to bite you in the butt.

Frauds master our minds; magicians, like poets and lovers, engage them in a permanent maze of possibilities.

There is no shortcut to achievement.

I think people had somehow gotten the sense that we have explored everything, when that isn't the case. We so know so little about the ocean, and so much of it is being destroyed.

At the end of six innings of play, it's Montreal 5, Expos 3.

Compassion is nothing one feels with the intellect alone. Compassion is particular; it is never general.

They say that this century is going to be an Asian Century. I am very clear that without embracing the path and ideals shown by Gautam Buddha this century cannot be an Asian century!

The sole purpose of life is to gain merit for life in eternity.

O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear; Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear. - Romeo -