I first started writing fiction in college because I was attracted to beautiful sentences. I loved to read them. I wanted to write them.

How much sweeter life would be if it all happened in reverse, if, after decades of disappointments, you finally arrived at an age when you had conceded nothing, when everything was possible.

Fear is ... a kind of unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do.

Just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: What will happen next?

But the past is long, and the future is short.

It requires a certain kind of bravery, I suppose, to choose the status quo. There's a certain boldness to inaction.

We were a different kind of Christian, the quiet, reasonable kind, a breed embarrassed by the mention of miracles.

I can write all the way through the morning, when my mind is clear, and there are no distractions.

To some degree we all live with uncertainty. We have no control over the future. Yet we carry on, we persevere, because, I guess, it's the way we're made.

My goal was just to tell the unlikely story in a way that would feel as convincing as possible.

I guess it never is what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophes are always different—unimagined, unprepared for, unknown.

A fool thinks that he can cheat others, but a prudent man knows that he can only cheat himself.

Okay, I cannot say this without being very direct. If you are looking for a spouse or even a romance through social media, you are looking for trouble.

For example, Americans seem reluctant to take on Shakespeare because you don't think you're very good at it - which is rubbish. You're missing out here.

Nature's action is complex: and nothing is gained in the long run by pretending that it is simple, and trying to describe it in a series of elementary propositions.

My job is essentially that of an entertainer, no different to that of a musician, no different to that of an actor. I just happen to be an author.

My philosophy is familiarity breeds contempt.

A lot of the art that was destroyed was painted and created by Jews. A lot of that is gone because that was degenerative art. That's what Hitler was trying to get rid of.

My wife has cut our lovemaking down to once a month, but I know two guys she's cut out entirely.

What you have despised in yourself as a thorn opens into a rose.

Soccer's not a game that you can restrict players, especially creative players and players who have proven themselves at that level.