I don't actually believe in the extension of consciousness after death.

You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

Time is how you spend your love.

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.

Don't confuse honours with achievement.

Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.

Bright star of Eanna, forgive me the manner of this, but you are the harbor of my soul’s journeying.

Every few words you speak, every little help you offer and every small advice you give mass up tiny miracles that can change someone's life forever!

For, if after fifty you don't live the aspirations of the young, go away. Who needs needs spectacled snails, salivating on the Soma of youth.

The classes that wash most are those that work least.

The worst feeling in the world is the homesickness that comes over a man occasionally when he is at home.

Dinosaur fossils were placed in rocks by prankster God just to make human beings think the world is older than it is.

The truth is supposed to hurt. That's how it lets you know you don't got it.

Why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?

To be conscious of gratitude is to acknowledge a gift.

I think if you're a good songwriter, that's what you are first - not a star or celebrity.