There are ideas it will be easy to say in the future that we just don't have the language for now.

If I could start over today, I would choose literature again. If the answers exist in the world or in the universe, I still think that's where we're going to find them.

The novel form is about the protagonist's struggle to transform his arbitrary, fragmented, given experience into a narrative as meaningful as his favorite books.

Poetry is another space, like love, where we extend that extra credit to the writer.

Humor is really important to me. All my favorite writers are writers I consider to be funny, including Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, even though that's not necessarily their rap.

In a lot of ways, being a writer is a lousy job - grueling, emotionally taxing, terrible hours, no health care - so if it wasn't about love, what would be the point?

At any given time, there are ideas and images that can only be communicated indirectly.

When you invent something, you're drawing on reservoirs of knowledge that you already have. It's only when you're faithful to the truth that something can come to you from the outside.

I am a great admirer of Henry Jeffreys and have been eagerly awaiting his booze and empire book for many years!

I didn't care about truth; I cared about beauty. It took me many years--it took the experience of lived time--to realize that they really are the same thing.

People are shaped by friendship as much as by romance.

Concerning non-violence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.

The real moments that changed the world are when church members miss the meaning of a whole sermon, and take no accountability for the testimonies they damage, by being self-righteous.

Cocktail music is accepted as audible wallpaper.

One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washèd it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

Follow not after the vain, understand the ills of sense pleasures. One who is vigilant and meditative, obtains deep joy.

Big business depends entirely on the patronage of those who buy its products: the biggest enterprises loses its power and its influence when it loses its customers.

The leaves of the trees are like the thoughts of the men: Some are bright, some dark; some fresh, some rotten; some healthy, some diseased.

I've played some gangster roles, but that's obviously not me. When you're an Italian-American New York actor, it's just an easy way to get cast.

Im hoping that a lifetime of compromise and disappointment will read as extra depth and layers in my work.

Let him that hath done the good office conceal it; let him that received it disclose it.