Perhaps all of life is no more than a long preparation for the leaving of it.

Fictional characters are made of words, not flesh; they do not have free will, they do not exercise volition. They are easily born, and as easily killed off.

In order really to write one has to sink deep into the self and become lost there.

All my life I have lied. I lied to escape, I lied to be loved, I lied for placement and power; I lied to lie. It was a way of living; lies are life's almost-anagram.

The past beats inside me like a second heart.

If I was asked to say what was the greatest invention of human beings, I would say the sentence.

Everything we do is tinged with the knowledge that this may be the last time that we will do this, and that makes what we're doing incredibly sweet.

We carry the dead with us only until we die too, and then it is we who are borne along for a little while, and then our bearers in their turn drop, and so on into the unimaginable generations.

To take possession of a city of which you are not a native you must first fall in love there.

For memory, we use our imagination. We take a few strands of real time and carry them with us, then like an oyster we create a pearl around them.

A man is not much if he can't depend on himself, and nothing if others can't depend on him.

The little things are important, Mr. Wind-Up Bird,

This is wisdom: to love wine beauty and the heavenly spring. That's sufficient-the rest is worthless.

The only thing I can really offer the Filipino people is my sincerity.

In some cases, in order to protect global issues some sacrifice for national interest is worth it in the long run. Global warming, these things, they suffer everybody.

I think understanding your life as a story is a really terrific way of kind of knowing where you are and knowing who you are.

Hard work pays off in the future but requires discomfort now. Laziness pays off now but guarantees discomfort in the future.

The work of internal government has become the task of controlling the thousands of fifth-rate men.

You might be a redneck if your primary source of income is the pawn shop.

If you are trying to find something, it means you haven't got it. And if you find it simply by looking for it, that means it's false.

I think it's therapeutic when we play. It's just like therapy.