Ive always seen writing as a way of telling the truth. For me, writing is about truth. I have always tried to be faithful to my own experience.

Biography can be the most middle-class of all forms, the judgment of little people avenging themselves on the great.

The most important things in our intimate lives can't be discussed with strangers, except in books.

I think that there are empty ecological niches in the literary landscape crying to be filled and when a book more or less fills a niche it's seized on, even when it's a far from perfect fit...

I think sincerity was my sole aesthetic and realism my experimental technique.

Paris... is a world meant for the walker alone, for only the pace of strolling can take in all the rich (if muted) detail.

As a young teenager I looked desperately for things to read that might excuse me or assure me I wasn't the only one, that might confirm an identity I was unhappily piecing together

Tennessee Williams recognized that great theater begins with great talkers, and that great talkers obey two rules: they never sound like anyone else and they never say anything directly.

If I take a less defensive tone, I'd admit that I couldn't write today a very jazzy, contemporary look at America as I did in 1979 in States of Desire.

I didn't want to write a biographie romancee especially since I already write novels, nor did I want to challenge the rules of the biography game, arbitrary as those rules might be

At certain crucial moments - an emergency or an opportunity - one must act first and think later.

Is it easy? Usually not. But you don't forgive people for their benefit. You do it for your benefit.

I just don't believe in helping people who are going to torture me. Though I don't see any bamboo slivers. How can you possibly torture someone without bamboo slivers?

Forgiveness is most Christlike when it is given to the undeserving.

Every investigation which is guided by principles of Nature fixes its ultimate aim entirely on gratifying the stomach.

We waste half our strength in a useless regretting; We sit by old tombs in the dark too long.

A man who does not know how to be angry, does not know how to be good. Now and then a man should be shaken to the core with indignation over things evil.

It's not enough simply to wear the badge of corporate responsibility. Business must accept that real change is the only response to climate change and other environmental crises

The UK desperately needs less government and freer markets.

A Chess game is divided into three stages: the first, when you hope you have the advantage, the second when you believe you have an advantage, and the third... when you know you're going to lose!

Night brings our troubles to the light, rather than banishes them.