What was the future? The future was a solid wall, not promising, not threatening - all bunk. No guarantees of anything, not even the guarantee that life isn't one big joke.

Some people seem to fade away but then when they are truly gone, it's like they didn't fade away at all.

There's only one day at a time here, then it's tonight and then tomorrow will be today again.

New York was a city where you could be frozen to death in the midst of a busy street and nobody would notice.

Even if you don't have all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don't have that you don't want (Bob Dylan's dad)

When Johnson started singing, he seemed like a guy who could have sprung from the head of Zeus in full armor.

..my father was the best man in the world and probably worth a hundred of me, but he didn't understand me. The town he lived in and the town I lived in were not the same.

It takes a decade to grow a tree, and it takes more than one generation to shape the right mindset.

There is no limit to the extent of the potential that is open to you.

Lord, I fashion dark gods, too, Daring even to give You Dark despairing features

There's a unique bond of trust between readers and authors that I don't believe exists in any other art form; as a reader, I trust a novelist to give me his or her best effort, however flawed.

I add a smile to everything I wear and that has worked great for me.

There is no remedy for the inefficiency of public management.

I was surprised by how much I like being a father; surprised at what a decent father I am, because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to dump my selfishness.

Whatever is beautiful is beautiful by necessity

Content without style is propaganda or adolescence. Style without content is decadence.

I am a conservative. Quite possibly I am on the losing side; often I think so. Yet, out of a curious perversity I had rather lose with Socrates, let us say, than win with Lenin.