Don't be too precious about your craft... there's only 26 letters and 12 notes, and Shakespeare and Beethoven said it all better than any of us ever will

I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.

It can become an exercise in trying to get the reader to like and admire you instead of an exercise in creative art.

One of the things that makes Wittgenstein a real artist to me is that he realized that no conclusion could be more horrible than solipsism.

If your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything.

I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?

This might be one way to start talking about differences between the early postmodern writers of the fifties and sixties and their contemporary descendants.

How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.

Whitney Houston was a laser beam ... She always gave me better than what I asked for in the studio

Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.

Well, they've come a long way. To think that he now could access a secret document held in the Vatican archives, via electronic technology.

If prayer fails I am in a greater darkness yet, not knowing whether I have presumed too much or believed too little.

Not everyone wants to be sexy everyday, wearing tight dresses and spanx.

At least let us have healthy books.

When you're in my house you shall do as I do and believe who I believe in. So Bart butter your bacon.

Scientology...is not a religion.

That to me is what my idea of film acting should be. There shouldn't be any acting. You should just be watching a real person.

When we are involved in [creativity], we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life.

But it's really hard to eat good when you're traveling because you see fast food and you want to go to this restaurant and that restaurant.

The mass are animal, in pupilage, and near chimpanzee.