Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
In fact, the whole thing about prohibition is this: it isn't the initial cost, it's the humidity.
There is this assumption that much of what I write is about my life, and that simply is not true.
Novelists embody plural selves all the time. What are characters, after all, if not other selves?
To have a son in wartime is the worst curse that can befall a mother, no matter what anyone says.
Readers, like writers, are essentially amoral. Arm's length will never do. We want to get closer.
If you care about somebody, you should want them to be happy. Even if you wind up being left out.
To kill a mockingbird. If you haven't read it, I think you should because it is very interesting.
I cried when my ex-girlfriend sent me a text message saying how much she liked my present to her.
I think I've written about family and things in 'Taipei' which could be considered Asian culture.
I wanted to acquire an education, work extremely hard and never deviate from my goal, to make it.
It is rarely that the pleasures of the imagination will compensate for the pain of sleeplessness.
Love with your mouth shut, help without breaking your ass or publicizing it: keep cool, but care.
Storytelling is the essential human activity. The harder the situation, the more essential it is.
It's funny, but you never really think much about breathing. Until it's all you ever think about.
I write against violence. I write against fascism. I write against one person dominating another.
Probably what pushed the Russians over the edge was SDI... They realized they couldn't beat us...
As for writing about temptation, there's no drama without temptation, and no novel without drama.
The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one.
We may both be bad, but there’s a huge difference between us—I’m not content with being this way.
I cannot disobey something which I do not know and the reality of which I have the right to deny.
Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.
I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita.
I'm a magpie in my fiction, taking whatever looks shiny and curious to line the nest of my story.
Individualism is going around these days in uniform, handing out the party line on individualism.
Our obsession with security is a measure of the power we have granted the future to hold over us.
To defend what we love we need a particularizing language, for we love what we particularly know.
This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve.
Does a bibliophile ever have enough room on his shelves? The answer is obvious: get more shelves.
To some extent I'm guilty of wishful thinking. The absence of the interstitial I find unbearable.
I like to think I'm writing in the tradition of Raymond Chandler, although I don't ape his style.
He who meanly admires a mean thing is a snob--perhaps that is a safe definition of the character.
After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say 'I want to see the manager.'
Madness is confusion of levels of fact. . . . Madness is not seeing visions but confusing levels.
Addiction is a disease of exposure. Doctors and nurses, for instance, have a high addiction rate.
I think that one of the compelling themes of fiction is this confrontation between good and evil.
If your gonna screw up, do it while you're young. Older you get, the harder it is to bounce back.
The library was the place I went to find out what there was to know. It was absolutely essential.
Because I’ve had a taste and I’m not sharing. This isn’t just for fun. I may be slightly addicted.
The fact I want...no, I need for us to be exclusive until we part ways when we head off to college
The minutes ticked past. This is why peelers need a book. A wee paperback to stick in your pocket.
I don't use a crap camera, I don't eat junk, and I'm not going to a dance where the boys are bores
It's like all those quiet people, when they do lose their tempers they lose them with a vengeance.
Human nature, if it changes at all, changes not much faster than the geological face of the earth.
The fewer limitations the artist imposes on his work, the less chance he has for artistic success.
... some kind of clean, pure feeling does live within us, existing apart from all our convictions.
even though disease and sorrow are all about us, health and happiness are the normal state of man.
I can hurt myself more than anyone else can, she told her sister. I can do it with my eyes closed.
Is falling in love with someone's story the same thing as falling in love with the person himself?
There is ebb and flow. Leaving and coming. Flight and fall. Sing and silent. Reaching and reached.
In the realm of human destiny, the depth of man's questionings is more important than his answers.