Sometimes you get a flash of what you look like to other people.

You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

Time is how you spend your love.

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.

Don't confuse honours with achievement.

Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.

The way something looks is the last thing we figure out

I'm no mechanic but I can change my oil and I know what to do when I get a flat tire and I can hot-wire it in an emergency.

I've always found music that is carnal very attractive but not in the most obvious way.

Never make bad predictions, especially about the futture.

They're such different things [Townies and Lonesome Dove]. I certainly love them both. Certainly Lonesome Dove would be way hard now, because, I mean, back then I wasn't married.

Purely cinematic film ... actually the purest expression of a cinematic idea.

As I got older, I started to do it more and more, and I wanted to learn all of the different types. I grew up doing modern, so I wanted to learn ballet, tap, jazz, and African - just everything.

Sometimes, when you're this adventurous, you rip the crotch out of your pants.

I put a mustache and some eyebrows on, and I looked just like Nicolas Cage. ... We have the same amazingly handsome good looks.

I once met a beautiful, proper English girl. I bid her adieu.... she bid me a don't.