Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us.

I like the construction of sentences and the juxtaposition of words-not just how they sound or what they mean, but even what they look like.

I think more than writers, the major influences on me have been European movies, jazz, and Abstract Expressionism.

We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.

As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive.

No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.

I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.

I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.

It was as if we'd known each other for a thousand years.

If you consume animal derived foods or use other animal derived products you are by no stretch of the imagination an "environmentalist." You are a rank hypocrite.

I asked a Burmese why women, after centuries of following their men, now walk ahead. He said there were many unexploded land mines since the war.

Love's the little leaven that works the whole world glad.

We were created for meaningful work, and one of life's greatest pleasures is the satisfaction of a job well done.

I can't be the big star in the family. We have a family, and we are all equal.

I think writers write for their consciences, they write for their own true audiences, for their souls.

In times when nothing stood but worsened, or grew strange, there was one constant good: she did not change.

At least he's alive and well. I love him enough that I want that. I want him to have what's best for him." She sighed. "I just don't want to stick around to watch.

Bestow rewards without respect to customary practice; publish orders without respect to precedent. Thus you may employ the entire army as you would one man.