What does literature do better than anything else? It provides a detailed representation of the inner experience of being alive in a given time and place.

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.

Love is the brightest star in the soul's sky.

Primary purposes of a mirror: (1) To help civilized men realize their imperfections, and, (2) To help the imperfect hide their imperfections.

We have only this moment sparkling like a star in our hand ... and melting like a snowflake. Let us use it before it is too late.

Don't we introduce time as a means of becoming more evolved? The brain has evolved but is there evolution inwardly? Can the brain dominated by time not be subservient to it?

I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia (sister Olivia de Havilland) did, and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it!

I was fascinated by the effects that could be achieved by editing. The cutting room became a magic workshop for me.

As we judge others so are we judged by others. The suspicious will always be tormented by suspicion.

The whole purpose of the universe is unerringly aimed at one thing - you.

I really feel that artists or musicians are controversial people. Controversy is part of the nature of art and creativity. If people are not doing that, they're not artists - they're artisans.