I'd like, each time out as a writer, to reinvent who I am and what I'm doing. That's one of the great pleasures and rewards of the occupation.

What I really like to learn how to do is to build sentences that are equal to mental states.

When you're sure of what you're looking at, look harder.

Librarian is a service occupation. Gas station attendant of the mind.

Reading is the last act of secular prayer.

All we can ever do is lay a word in the hands of those who have put one in ours.

The job of taste was to thin the insane torrent of human creativity down to manageable levels. But the job of appetite was never to be happy with taste.

I write the way you might arrange flowers. Not every try works, but each one launches another. Every constraint, even dullness, frees up a new design.

I would say the flip side to my fascination with systems is a fascination with components. So many of my books are dialogues between little and big.

The use of music is to remind us how short a time we have a body.

Maybe happiness is like a virus. Maybe it's one of those bugs that sits for a long time, so we don't even know that we are infected.

Never be ashamed of who you are. True shame always belongs to the person that enjoys being ashamed of who you are.

The precondition to freedom is security.

You could have 50 different states having 50 different regulations... until they were all litigated out.

The only way to stop Jim Brown was to give him a movie contract.

I'm only this far, and only tomorrow leads my way.

Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer and clearer still, until your eyes ache.

Self knowledge is always bad news.

The Seasons Difference is a suave and urbane comedy about several immense abstractions - faith, innocence, loneliness, and love.

Living in the past is a Jethro Tull album, not a smart poker strategy.

Dissonance is the truth about harmony.