Braininess is not attractive unless combined with some signs of elegance; class.

You cannot let your parents anywhere near your real humiliations.

The complexity of things - the things within things - just seems to be endless. I mean nothing is easy, nothing is simple.

Always remember that when a man goes out of the room, he leaves everything in it behind. When a woman goes out she carries everything that happened in the room along with her.

I would really hope this would make people see the short story as an important art, not just something you played around with until you got a novel.

The conversation of kisses. Subtle, engrossing, fearless, transforming.

In your life there are a few places, or maybe only the one place, where something happened, and then there are all the other places.

We say of some things that they can't be forgiven, or that we will never forgive ourselves. But we do-we do it all the time.

My head was a magpie's nest lined with such bright scraps of information.

Love removes the world for you, and just as surely when it's going well as when it's going badly.

Life would be grand if it weren't for the people.

It is impossible to be both selfish and happy

All of today's DNA, strung through all the cells of the earth, is simply an extension and elaboration of [the] first molecule.

Poverty, hatred, war, police-criminals, bureaucracy, insanity, all symptoms of The Human Virus.

Success in the sport is, above all else, about enduring suffering.

If I were God, I'd work on the reach of empathy.

It's not the fur or the fangs that make you a monster, not always. Sometimes, it's just where you draw the line.

Those things that are in the light we behold from darkness.

Disgust at having to talk about oneself is what distinguishes novelistic talent from lyric talent.

I don't work out as much as I should, but I do believe that it's a healthy mind as well as a healthy body that keeps me fit, sound and calm.

It's strange how the simple things in life go on while we become more difficult.