There's not a strong autobiographical strain in my fiction. A few bits of fact here and there.

I don't think you can talk about progress in art - movement, but not progress. You can speak of a point on a line for the purpose of locating things, but it's a horizontal line, not a vertical one.

The writer is one who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do... Writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how.

The aim of literature ... is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.

Endings are elusive, middles are nowhere to be found, but worst of all is to begin, to begin, to begin.

Any genuine work of art generates new work.

I believe that because I had obtained a wife who was made up of wife-signs (beauty, charm, softness, perfume, cookery) I had found love.

Yes, success is everything. Failure is more common. Most achieve a sort of middling thing, but fortunately one's situation is always blurred, you never know absolutely quite where you are.

The death of God left the angels in a strange position.

We are what we have been told about ourselves. We are the sum of the messages we have received. The true messages. The false messages.

The privileged classes can afford psychoanalysis and whiskey. Whereas all we get is sermons and sour wine. This is manifestly unfair. I protest, silently.

I would rather do really good French films than 'American Pie.'

Write your own songs. It helps you to mean what you're singing, which will then make it mean something to listeners.

If you're going to read minds, start with a simple one.

Formulate a specific game plan... the specific steps in making your intention come to life.

All that you think is rain is not. Behind the veil angels sometimes weep.

Never have hatred toward any religion.

When people say "clearly" something that means there's a huge crack in their argument and they know things aren't clear at all.

A Marine is never intimidated.

Sinful and forbidden pleasures are like poisoned bread; they may satisfy appetite for the moment, but there is death in them at the end.

We can choose to throw stones, to stumble on them, to climb over them, or to build with them.