Since great writers communicate a vision of existence, one can't borrow their methods. The method is married to the vision.

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped.

The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.

Khomeini has offered us the opportunity to regain our frail religion ... faith in the power of words.

There was that law of life, so cruel and so just, that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.

Any war that requires the suspension of reason as a necessity for support is a bad war.

America is a hurricane, and the only people who do not hear the sound are those fortunate if incredibly stupid and smug White Protestants who live in the center, in the serene eye of the big wind.

I was thinking that surgeons had to be the happiest people on earth. To cut people up and get paid for it-that's happiness, I told myself.

Love asks us that we be a little braver than is comfortable, a little more generous, a little more flexible. It means living on the edge more than we care to.

Reaching consensus in a group is often confused with finding the right answer.

I'm wondering what to read next." Matilda said. "I've finished all the children's books.

Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.

Things that are done, it is needless to speak about...things that are past, it is needless to blame.

Memory is what you did. Life is what you're doing.

Music's the one thing I try not to analyze. I don't want to destroy the magic that has always been there for me.

But I think I know just as many creative people who've never taken drugs in their life as I do who have taken a lot of drugs.

We all understand that compromise is part of the legislative process, yet at the same time, I would submit that wilderness is not for sale.

There are characters in [punk] that do deliberately go as far as they can in certain kind of taboo areas.

I was raised by a strong mother and I never felt like I had to be a role, you know, I was just me, who I am.

The gift of knowledge is the highest gift in the world.