I think in a lot of ways, writing, when you're really in there, is like being an actress because you're in somebody else's head.

Long after the bomb falls and you and your good deeds are gone, cockroaches will still be here, prowling the streets like armored cars.

With publicity comes humiliation.

The older a woman gets, the more invisible you become.

Most of my life is just spent lying in bed. I mean, it's enough pressure to write the words. Do I need to use the additional energy exerted by sitting up?

The novel is never really in the first draft. The novel really happens in the revisions.

Whether I'm critically well received, whether or not I sell books - of course it becomes progressively harder to get them published - nevertheless, it's what I do, every day.

Why would I want to read something about somebody that's just a really nice, decent person who overcomes terrible trials? That's not how life is to me.

I feel like I sort of missed the eighties. At the time, we didn’t know we were having fun, which is probably the way it always is.

I was like a social worker for lepers. My clients had a chunk of their body they wanted to give away; for a price I was there to receive it.

I think the sixties must have been quite a lot of fun.

Stop chasing people who keep running away from your presence, because even if you succeed in catching them, sooner or later they would run away.

Absolute freedom is an illusion. For while an employed man might be free from starvation, he is a slave to his employer's financial aspirations, and, working-hours.

Threw you the obvious and you flew with it on your back, A name in your recollection, down among a million same." - A Perfect Circle.

I'm a realist. And realists don't fool themselves.

TV is so seductive with a great workday. You're going to work and making people laugh, and that's fantastic.

Sadness, discomfort, frustration -- they are all valid human emotions. Why would we want to suppress them?

To benefit by others' killing and to delude oneself into the belief that one is being very religions and nonviolent is sheer self-deception.

If you have patience, then you'll also have love. Patience leads to love.

When half-gods go The gods arrive.

I think it's bad for human beings to be artists. It's awful. You want to do something but you're constantly trying to decide what you want to do. Let's just say it's no place like Hawaii.