There is a shabby nobility in failing all by yourself.

I think men talk to women so they can sleep with them and women sleep with men so they can talk to them.

I'd like to have the kind of house someday where a carousel horse wouldn't be out of place in the living room.

Sometimes I think the difference between what we want and what we're afraid of is about the width of an eyelash.

The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families.

Delia's arms were inscribed with a grid of self- inflicted wounds, an intricate text of self-loathing

There's a socialist bias to the consensus of the literary world: a '30s mentality that says factory workers are more worthy of our attention.

I like the fact that I'm living in the world rather than in a university.

If it's red, French, costs too much, and tastes like the water that's left in the vase after the flowers have died and rotted, it's probably Burgundy.

Reading a novel is just a much more involving and intimate experience than the act of watching a film. I mean, you literally get inside of a novelist's head, and you invest many hours to do so.

The most interesting things that happen in my books are usually the things that arise spontaneously, the things that surprise me.

A nationalist will blindly follow his country to his death out of love for it. A patriot will stand up for and even against his country to his death out of love for it.

Too much war, hatred and fear in the world.Desperately needed: More art, love and poetry.

He glanced again at her tightly drawn face as he parked and understood, with sudden, startling clarity, that if they failed to find Tanya alive, then Bella, too, would be lost.

Almost always it is the fear of being ourselves that brings us to the mirror.

And then, when I went into the Navy, there was no choice. You took about half of the hours during your naval training as naval courses and the other half were engineering.

A self - a me - exists in every thought and every emotion. Suffering arises through complete identification with thinking and emotions.

I suppose I've been working for a long time, so I've seen all kinds of filmmaking. I can fit into anything, and it doesn't feel that weird or that fascinating.

Life happens. Love happens. You gotta take some chances.

Based on my experience, I can say that India country can be freed of corruption.

It's amazing to know that 5 years ago I was writing songs in a basement in the ghetto and now I'm writing for Michael Jackson. I'd be a fool not to say it's a dream come true.