Men fear silence as they fear solitude, because both give them a glimpse of the terror of life's nothingness.

We owe to the Middle Ages the two worst inventions of humanity - romantic love and gunpowder.

Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold.

The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.

We can talk frankly about our defects only to those who recognise our qualities.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.

A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.

A marriage without conflicts is almost as inconceivable as a nation without crises.

We appreciate frankness from those who like us. Frankness from others is called insolence.

Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know.

A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day.

i am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me. those seem to be the two choices. everything else is just killing time.

Vipassana meditation is not an intellectual journey but an experiential awakening.

Criticism is no threat to your self-esteem or identity, but rather informs you.

The feeling of not belonging, of not being entirely worthy, of being sometimes hostage to your own sensibilities. Those things speak to me very personally.

Someone like myself is not from one place. I am in total identification with the New York, French, and Palestine experience and do not stop at the borders of identity.

I'd like to thank my mother, my father, the Academy. I'm sorry. I was thinking of something else.

When I'm focused, there is not one single thing, person, anything that can stand in the way of my doing something. There is not. If I want something bad enough, I feel I'm gonna get there.

No one was going to stop me from writing and no one had to really guide me towards science fiction. It was natural, really, that I would take that interest.

I do not fight for free. But I was born to be a fighter.

Bugs are not going to inherit the earth. They own it now. So we might as well make peace with the landlord.