Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know whether or not it was funny.

You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.

Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.

The challenge for a human now is to be more interesting to another than his or her smartphone.

There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.

Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them.

Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough.

Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surrender to events with hope.

One of the better guarantors of ending up in a good relationship: an advanced capacity to be alone.

To one's enemies: "I hate myself more than you ever could.

The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.

The tear-stained letters of my regret will remain forever unread, for I am never going to be strong enough to give them to you.

Given the level of understanding and the fact that they believed already in a set of myths and superstitions, it was the easiest and fastest way to proceed.

When one bases his life on principle 99 percent of his decisions are already made.

The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

The Miami Dolphins have to be taken seriously. Here's a team that seems to be jelling.

My stories are very compact. I want them to say the most complex things in the simplest way.

Sometimes people ask what it was like when I got to meet Mick Jagger, and I must admit that you just try and chill out and be your best self around anyone that you meet.

I want to be alone and I want people to notice me — both at the same time.

By adopting a certain physical posture, a resonant chord is struck in spirit.