Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos… to celebrate a world that lies spread out around us like a bewildering and stupendous dream.

A lonely man is a lonesome thing, a stone, a bone, a stick, a receptacle for Gilbey's gin, a stooped figure sitting at the edge of a hotel bed, heaving copious sighs like the autumn wind.

It was a splendid summer morning and it seemed as if nothing could go wrong.

All literary men are Red Sox fans - to be a Yankee fan in a literate society is to endanger your life.

That's the way I remember them, heading for an exit.

Fear tastes like a rusty knife and do not let her into your house.

Art is the triumph over chaos.

Homesickness is nothing. Fifty percent of the people in the world are homesick all the time.

I've been homesick for countries I've never been, and longed to be where I couldn't be.

Then it is dark; it is a night where kings in golden suits ride elephants over the mountains.

My veins are filled, once a week with a Neapolitan carpet cleaner distilled from the Adriatic and I am as bald as an egg. However I still get around and am mean to cats.

Spirituality is a magnet, and the magnet affects iron, not wood or stone. Similarly, faith and devotion are iron, who has that, spirituality touches the believer, not an unbeliever.

you ask too many questions, " snapped Cletus.I kept my gaze on Roman. "that's because I get too few answers.

It's my real name. My mother's name is Rose Rock. It was the worst name as a kid to have. They called me Piece of the Rock, Plymouth Rock, Joe Rockid, and Flintstones. Now they call me Mister Rock.

It isn't necessary to seek out adventure. Opening to what is around you will produce the most extraordinary experiences.

Really now, I just can't seem to die... Where's the messy end I was promised?

We love in another's soul whatever of ourselves we can deposit in it; the greater the deposit, the greater the love

Happy hour is slightly different in the Soviet Union. There are no ice cubes or orange-peel twists in the vodka. Also, it lasts all day.

How well you do in life shouldn't depend on how well your parents did.

When I was little, I always used to like to tell stories cuz it was entertaining to people.

Inspiring visions rarely (I'm tempted to say never) include numbers.