The past has to be seen to be dead; or the past will kill.

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing - which is never an easy thing to do.

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

One isn’t born one’s self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people’s ideas – and you have to work through it all.

Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision.

It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling.

The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.

Home is, I suppose just a child's idea. A house at night, and a lamp in the house. A place to feel safe.

One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.

The world is always in movement.

All the details of the life and the quirks and the friendships can be laid out for us, but the mystery of the writing will remain. No amount of documentation, however fascinating, can take us there.

You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.

I glory, more in the cunning purchase of my wealth than in the glad possession.

I have never believed you go to war in Iraq, you go to war in Afghanistan, and believe that you can deal with those battlefields, those countries, in microcosms, or narrow channels.

The iron chain and the silken cord are both equally bonds.

Since Satan can't destroy the gospel, he has too often neutralized its usefulness by addition, subtraction or substitution.

And I am a mockery, who was God before.

People who can write a book usually do.

We are not interested in a proxy war. Our objective is to change Russia's behavior.

Sometimes you have to bring back only the steering wheel so the car owner will know that you're giving it all you have.

Soup not only warms you and is easy to swallow and to digest, it also creates the illusion in the back of your mind that Mother is there.