I don't believe less is more. I believe that more is more. I believe that less is less, fat fat, thin thin and enough is enough.

The peculiar dignity of men seen eating alone in restaurants on national holidays

Writing is an exercise in sculpture, chipping away at the rock until you find the nose.

Life's tallest order is to keep the feelings up, to make two dollars' worth of euphoria go the distance. And life can't do that. So fiction does.

I would never write about anyone who is not at the end of his rope.

Like a lot of what happens in novels, inspiration is a sort of spontaneous combustion--the oily rags of the head and heart.

The furthest out is the only place to be.

It's fine, precise, detailed work, the infinitely small motor management of diamond cutters and safecrackers that we do in our heads.

But it's hard to talk about art. Maybe there should be a law against it, some First Amendment gag order like crying fire in a crowded theater.

The living and dead were thrown together, and the dead looked away first.-Description of Doomsday

People's behaviors are messages, not a diagnosis because I can no longer discern the world's version of insanity.

Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid.

I don't think that capitalism should be unbridled, if by "unbridled" you mean unregulated.

There is a constant ebb and flow in art historical reputations. The reputation of even the greatest figures like Picasso are in flux.

I didn't go out on one date in high school. I played guitar and sang and wrote my own music and poetry and stuff when I was a teenager.

I'm the dad, the cleanup guy. I deal with the bigger messes. But I also provide more adventures and excitement. It works out.

If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution.

I got binoculars 'cause I don't want to go that close.

Cholesterol to go with alcohol; all the bad things in English-speaking life end in -ol.

I'm one Pia Zadora, the same way all the time. That's why I'm happy. It took me a long time to get to the point where could be myself all the time.