Writing my novel 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North, ' I came to conclude that great crimes like the Death Railway did not begin with the first beating or murder on that grim line of horror in 1943.

A good book ... leaves you wanting to reread the book. A great book compels you to reread your own soul.

A happy man has no past, while an unhappy man has nothing else.

There are words and words and none mean anything. And then one sentence means everything.

We have a very foolish notion in Western countries that progress delivers freedom. But progress doesn't necessarily bring moral virtue.

Writing is not lying, nor is it theft. It is a journey and search for transparency between one’s words and one’s soul.

Is it easier for a man to live his life again as a fish, than to accept the wonder of being human? So alone, so frightened, so wanting for what we are afraid to give tongue to.

What reality was ever made by realists?

When forging money, I had always salved my conscience by concluding that I was merely extending the lie of commerce.

Love is the scent of a sleeping back, death a slight draft of bad breath.

It's a sin for a writer to go looking for camels to put into his or her pages. I only want details that are the story.

Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.

And while I was not an admirer of people in the specific, I liked them in the abstract. It is only the execution of the idea that disappoints.

Liberty of thought soon shrivels without freedom of expression. Nor can truth be pursued in an atmosphere hostile to the endeavor or under dangers which are hazarded only by heroes.

We often contradict an opinion for no other reason than that we do not like the tone in which it is expressed.

We don't need to bring down the rich folk to help the poor.

But the more insidious enemies of religion recognize but deplore religion's remarkable influence in the world order.

Dogma is invariably wrong, as knowledge is always in a state of transition.

People believe in God because we are pattern-seeking, storytelling, mythmaking, religious, moral animals.

I work out a lot - five, six, days a week. I take yoga classes and go to the gym - I love doing it and I have the time to do it. Not everybody has that option.

Angels rush in when fools are almost dead.