Whether it is done quickly or slowly, however splendid the results, the process of writing fiction is inherently, inevitably, indistinguishable from wasting time.

Art is inherently subversive. It’s destabilizing. It undermines what you already know and what you already think. It is the opposite of propaganda.

Every moment is all the things that have happened before and all the things that are going to happen, and...the way all those things look at one point on their way along a line.

When one writes, there’s the double horror of discovering not only what it is that one so fears but also the triviality of that fear.

It's broadening. You meet people in your family you'd never happen to run into otherwise.

I always thought of writing as holy. I still do. It’s not something to be approached casually.

I'm a person with virtually no feelings.

Everything makes me angry, unless it makes me sad.

But she believed there was a thin line between accepting one's fears and giving in to them altogether.

When others walk away from a lost cause, then that is the time you can step in and seize success.

Society is a collection of selves perpetuating their myth.

You can't run away from trouble. There ain't no place that far.

I'd rather do more with the same, then the same with less.

I've been singing since I was 16 because I love it - I wanted to be a singer, not a star. There's a difference between wanting to be famous and wanting to sing well.

I've been very lucky.

Smashing heads does not open minds.

I think comedy's often the little and the large, isn't it?

I'm not into killing living things, you know, but I'll always have guns.