God seems to have a kind of laid-back management style I’m not crazy about.

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.

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.

In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.

Adversity or opportunity is university.

God you are the only legend of love and truth that we all long for. Thank you Lord.

We love each other. You love me, you do.” His eyes beseech me to believe it, to remember it, to feel it.

For who can stop the heart from breaking?

Last night, two men tried to force my shutters. I recognized them: they are two of Rodin's Italian models. He told them to kill me. I am in his way; he wants to get rid of me.

There's no day when I don't think it would be great to be 25 years old and have the Olympics coming in less than 300 days - and be the best in the world. I can't think of anything so motivating.

Saying you love something out loud with the wrong intonation in your face can damn you and destroy what you're working on.

Controversy chases the Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin the way a dog chases a stick.

Arthur Rimbaud was a disreputable, mean, ruthless, perverse, hateful wretch. He was also one of the greatest poets who ever lived.

Travellers are just commuters with a wider perspective.