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.

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.

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.

Love is revealed progressively.

Life is not about growing old and dying. Life is about growing and trying.

Incidentally, it’s easy to write prescriptions, but difficult to come to an understanding with people.

It's not about knowing the key to success, but knowing how to use it and which doors to open

The English can be a very critical, unforgiving people, but criticism can be good. And this is a country that loves comedy.

There is somebody in our lives that we could call the Energizer Bunny and we admire for those qualities.

I did with my wife a comic book for the Raynham Hall Museum in Long Island. They sell the book every single time a busload of kids comes in.

I think I would rather be a man than a god. We don’t need anyone to believe in us. We just keep going anyhow. It’s what we do.

You get fifteen democrats in a room, and you get twenty opinions.

My greatest political asset, which professional politicians fear, is my mouth, out of which come all kinds of things one shouldn't always discuss for reasons of political expediency.