The secret to living in the rush of the world with a minimum of pain is to get as many people as possible to string along with your delusions.

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you - it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists.

He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.

You can no more make someone tell the truth than you can force someone to love you.

Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.

The horror of being caged has lost its thrill.

Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.

I have a slogan I use when I get anxious writing, which happens quite a bit: ‘the ordeal is part of the commitment.’ It’s one of my mantras. It makes a lot of things doable.

When the whole world doesn't believe in God, it'll be a great place.

Because that is when you love somebody - when you see them being game in the face of the worst. Not courageous. Not heroic. Just game.

Those of us who embrace the feminine know its strength.

So they finally gave you the license to kill, about time.

I am ready for the most exhilarating time of my life, discovery before me, negativity behind me, through the road to ruin, I will find within me, my most unshakeable truth.

We have a very narrow view of what is going on.

Do nothing that is not natural - and ritual is natural - and all will be for the best.

People seldom learn from the mistakes of others-not because they deny the value of the past, but because they are faced with new problems.

It is not because there is God that devotion has come; because there is devotion, there is God.

I pull you from your tower, take away your pain. Show you all the beauty you possess, if you only let yourself believe.

Happiness is a state of mind. You can be happy or you can be unhappy.

Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut.