Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end.
It’s how I fill the time when nothing’s happening. Thinking too much, flirting with melancholy.
I just finished reading the Koran, and there's nothing in there I didn't hear in Sunday school.
America is the most inventive country in the world because everybody has access to information.
I wanted to wear the mantle and the pearls. I wanted to know the man who painted her like that.
Do remember, though, that sometimes the people you oppress become mightier than you would like.
I feel like myself, strong and weak at once - allowed, at least for a little while, to be both.
I feel empty, not because of sadness, but because of relief, all the tension flowing out of me.
I'm the opposite of those writers who believe that my work is sacrosanct and cannot be touched.
I am certainly not allergic to causes - particularly on subjects such as religious intolerance.
I think it's possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.
There is no hate such as that born out of love betrayed- and my brain screamed out for revenge.
Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations.
I shall continue to exist. I may assume other disguises, other forms, but I shall try to exist.
And she was mine, she was mine, the key was in my fist, my fist was in my pocket, she was mine.
Reverence makes it possible to be whole, though ignorant. It is the wholeness of understanding.
Willing to die you give up your will; keep still, until moved by what moves all else, you move.
I'd rather there wasn't an afterlife, really. I'd much rather not be me for thousands of years.
There were some things you did, no matter what, and when a friend needed help, you helped them.
If you're going to abridge a book in the author's own words, you can't go sticking your own in.
It’s not the word made flesh we want in writing, in poetry and fiction, but the flesh made word
The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.
Whether you sniff it smoke it eat it or shove it up your ass the result is the same: addiction.
I felt the exultancy of a man just released from slavery and ready to set the universe on fire.
Against the background of general freakishness the case of my particular freakishness was lost.
We're in the world of communications more and more, tough we're in communication less and less.
The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer.
Why is there happiness and comfort and excitement where you are and no where else in the world.
If there is one thing I hope my books do always and forever, its that they honor working people.
It's so much nicer to be a secret and delightful sin to anybody than to be a feather in his cap.
Everybody always knows something," said Adam, "even if it's something they don't know they know.
Language is the ticket to plot and character, after all, because both are built out of language.
I loathe crowds. I especially dont like cities. A city involves biomass. And biomass gets to me.
I like to compare my method with that of painters centuries ago, proceeding from layer to layer.
Every man always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself.
The one who doesn't pull his weight is not asked to pull, while the one who does, pulls for two.
I didn't intend to be a novelist. I didn't intend to be anything. I thought I'd be a journalist.
Artists are never complete people. But if it's art that completes them, then what is taken away?
Ordinary persons, he said, smiling, found no differences between men. The artist found them all.
Sometimes words drew blood, they cut your tongue, they made you know things you couldn't unknow.
There is always a need for intoxication: China has opium, Islam has hashish, the West has woman.
The idea that people in novels should be more sympathetic than people in life simply baffles me.
I was good in biology, but I did very badly in chemistry, and my parents were horrified by that.
His main principles were indeed as follows: everything it is possible to imagine can also exist.
He sounded good, didn't he?" added Franck. "He only stuttered eight times." "That's what I mean.
When we agree to being part of something bigger than our own wired, fixated minds, we are saved.
I think Jesus is divine love manifest on Earth, as it comes through the community of Christians.
I don't think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won't be good at it.
One line of dialogue that rings true reveals character in a way that pages of description can't.
Whatever you say, old boy. Just look after yourself. And whatever you do, don't swallow the gum!