That's why people take vacations. No to relax or find excitement or see new places. To escape the death that exists in routine things.

I like the construction of sentences and the juxtaposition of words-not just how they sound or what they mean, but even what they look like.

I think more than writers, the major influences on me have been European movies, jazz, and Abstract Expressionism.

We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.

As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive.

No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.

I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.

I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.

You look like gold. I've been fooled before, but now I know I've made the mistake in the past. But now I, now I know the difference from gold and brass.

Some people have told me they remember the film that one of my images is derived from, but in fact I had no film in mind at all.

Love is the force that makes us fully human.

Southerners are so devoted to genealogy that we see a family tree under every bush.

The keys to the life of the heart lie in reflecting upon the Quran, being humble before Allah in secret, and leaving sins.

The Victorian house and lots of other buildings weren't oppressive in themselves. They were often very airy and gingerbready and fancy. But they were associated with all this [Victorian] stuffiness.

I am certain that movement never lies. There is only one law of posture I have been able to discover - the perpendicular line connecting heaven and earth.

Weeds are luckier than flowers because they are not killed for their beauties!

But who in war will not have his laugh amid the skulls?