Death isn't enough. It doesn't remove the stain. But a slap, a whiplash, square on the face, does. Because a man's face is as sacred as his mother or his wife.

Memory is a snare, pure and simple; it alters, it subtly rearranges the past to fit the present.

Prosperity or egalitarianism -- you have to choose. I favor freedom -- you never achieve real equality anyway: you simply sacrifice prosperity for an illusion.

Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life.

Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella." (spoken by character in a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa)

The secret to a masterpiece is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.

You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.

Its easy to know what you want to say, but not to say it

Writers are the exorcists of their own demons.

One can't fight with oneself, for this battle has only one loser.

No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing.

If the thought inspires you, and it feels good and right...it is yours, alone, to exercise. So get right on it!

But you do have to start young as a dancer if you're going to achieve the physical skills necessary.

It's very dependent on your state of mind. And your emotional state as well. And a lot of it comes pouring out, you don't really have that much control with it.

We don't get to decide who God is.

Know that morality is a curb, not a spur.

My mother was electric onstage, and I vividly recall the extraordinary power she had over her audiences

But it is in storms that God does his finest work, for it is in storms that God has our keenest attention

I had success early on where I'm able to try to keep it fun, and I don't have to do things just for the sake of making a living, which a lot of my musician friends don't have that luxury of course.

Literacy is not a luxury, it is a right and a responsibility.

The God of many men is little more than their court of appeal against the damnatory judgment passed on their failures by the opinion of the world.