Writing is a form of self-flagellation.

Most books, like their authors, are born to die; of only a few books can it be said that death has no dominion over them; they live, and their influence lives forever.

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.

It's fine therapy for people who are perpetually scared of nameless threats as I am most of the time — for jittery people.

I get a fine warm feeling when I'm doing well, but that pleasure is pretty much negated by the pain of getting started each day. Let's face it, writing is hell.

Mysteriously and in ways that are totally remote from natural experience, the gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain.

The writer's duty is to keep on writing.

Reading - the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay.

The pain is unrelenting; one does not abandon, even briefly, one's bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes.

It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul.

The pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it.

If you carry offense in your heart, it is too early for you to start your team

The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.

You feel real good, Lana. Makes me forget everything else

The attainment of the present status of Thailand has to depend on the ability or the actions of all the inhabitants of the country.

Is Heather McDonald your best friend? You better get a new one.

It was Matisse who took the first step into the undiscovered land of the ugly.

The making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land.

I understood immediately that to get success I had to make for the front door, not for the back one.

I try not to have too much of an ego. I'll do anything

Oh dear me, the Booker people don't like me. I don't care. I have been given an award for being taken not seriously, and I am very, very pleased about that.