Writing fiction is fundamentally an irrational act.

Most people who are HIV positive are on drugs and that gets their viral load so low that it's harder to transmit it. Most new infections come from people who don't know they're infected.

Your past comes with you no matter where you go.

Sometimes when we think we’re protecting ourselves, we’re really hurting ourselves. And sometimes the people around us too.

I'm a novelist. I think fiction is important or I wouldn't be doing it, but most of it's bad.

Most contemporary fiction sucks. It's intellectually dishonest, often morally dishonest. It's cheap and easy. It pretends to be deep but is really quite shallow.

Don't come to New York until you've finished a book. It's too expensive. You'll never write anything. You'll spend all your time working to pay the rent.

One night I had a dream and woke up and wrote down the dream. That was my first short story. The dream was a kind of fantasy of me getting revenge on my father.

AIDS was one of those diseases that a lot of people tried to claim ownership over, and especially as someone who was, fortunately never HIV positive, I wanted to avoid any appearance of doing that.

Losing my virginity was very boring.

Art is only great if it's uncodifiable. If art isn't scaring you, if it's not making you upset, then I don't think it's actually doing anything.

That we don't remember the beginning or the ending of dreams is our unconscious reminding us that it's all about the process.

We can only keep what we have by being willing to freely give it away; a paraphrase of Jesus Christ.

I studied his face, and as I did, I realized that he was studying me, our thoughts tangling in mid-air for a moment.

If your heart loses the ability to trust, you'll never love again.

When you read a book put all of your effort into staying present and focus your energy towards the comprehension of each and every word and how you can apply it into your daily life.

I look under the skin of countries' economies, and I help them make better decisions and be stronger, to prosper and create employment.

I am in deep shock. I have lost a beloved friend [George Michael] - the kindest, most generous soul and a brilliant artist. My heart goes out to his family and all of his fans.

It is good not to think of karma as an alien force that is outside of yourself. You are the generator of karma. Karma is the energy patterns that emanate from your life.

A sound so fine, there 's nothing lives 'Twixt it and silence.

To this day, I get rewrite offers where they say: 'We feel this script needs work with character, dialogue, plot and tone,' and when you ask what's left, they say: 'Well, the typing is very good.'