Why would I want to read something about somebody that's just a really nice, decent person who overcomes terrible trials? That's not how life is to me.

Long after the bomb falls and you and your good deeds are gone, cockroaches will still be here, prowling the streets like armored cars.

With publicity comes humiliation.

The older a woman gets, the more invisible you become.

Most of my life is just spent lying in bed. I mean, it's enough pressure to write the words. Do I need to use the additional energy exerted by sitting up?

The novel is never really in the first draft. The novel really happens in the revisions.

Whether I'm critically well received, whether or not I sell books - of course it becomes progressively harder to get them published - nevertheless, it's what I do, every day.

I feel like I sort of missed the eighties. At the time, we didn’t know we were having fun, which is probably the way it always is.

I was like a social worker for lepers. My clients had a chunk of their body they wanted to give away; for a price I was there to receive it.

I think the sixties must have been quite a lot of fun.

Brownstein's is a fresh and jaunty voice, with a jazz snap all his own.

When a man is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something.

Anyhow, a philosophical turn of thought now was not amiss, else one's patience would have given out almost at the harbour entrance. The term of her probation was eight days.

I still play solo shows. And some of those shows are still some of the best, most gratifying shows.

When someone's running late through an airport, I hope they miss their flight so they can meet the love of their life at the duty free shop.

Most human activities are predicated on the assumption that life goes on. If you take that premise away, what is there left?

Imagination continually frustrates tradition; that is its function.

Weary or bitter of bewildered as we may be, God is faithful. He lets us wander so we will know what it means to come home.

Happiness is native to the human mind and its physical machine. We think better, perform better, feel better, and are healthier when we are happy.

It doesn't matter who you are. What matters is your plan.

Where the statue stood Of Newton, with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone.