I'm sort of murdered for selling books. The idea is, if you make money your work can't be literary.

He moved like a dancer, which is not surprising; a horse is a beautiful animal, but it is perhaps most remarkable because it moves as if it always hears music.

Words were all he knew; they possessed and overwhelmed him, as if they were a thousand white cats with whom he shared a one-room apartment.

Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.

One is attracted to beauty. Beauty is the coordination of things, in such a way, that it is what attracts you. It's almost self-defining.

The shelf was filled with books that were hard to read, that could devastate and remake one's soul, and that, when they were finished, had a kick like a mule.

They gave themselves up to the stars the way swimmers can surrender to the waves, and the stars took them without resistance.

And if you were a spirit, and time did not bind you, and patience and love were all you knew, then there you would wait for someone to return, and the story to unfold.

If it weren't for music, I would think that love is mortal.

Marxists are people whose insides are torn up day after day because they want to rule the world and no one will even publish their letter to the editor.

And how does God speak to you?" "In the language of everything that is beautiful.

I began to feel lighthearted. Don't ever do that

The pool is terrible, but that doesn't have much to do with my record swims. That's all mental attitude.

Try to let what is unfair teach you.

That stillness and vastness that enables the Universe to be, is not just out there in space...it is also within you.

For nature makes women to be won, and men to win.

It seems disingenuous to ask a writer why she, or he, is writing about a violent subject when the world and history are filled with violence.

Since attaining the full use of my reason no one has ever heard me laugh.

The greatest superstition now entertained by public men is that hypocrisy is the royal road to success.

For man plans, but God arranges.

Give generously - and receive graciously.