There's a weird kind of paradox that the more expensive the vacation is, the more potentially anxiety-producing it is.

I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.

It can become an exercise in trying to get the reader to like and admire you instead of an exercise in creative art.

One of the things that makes Wittgenstein a real artist to me is that he realized that no conclusion could be more horrible than solipsism.

If your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything.

I know I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?

This might be one way to start talking about differences between the early postmodern writers of the fifties and sixties and their contemporary descendants.

How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.

Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.

In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.

Vodka goes well with a wintery perspective. Nothing else provokes such presentiments of falling snow except, for some, the communist seizure of the state.

The truth is that everybody has a past and everybody has an ex.

One great thing about getting old is that you can get out of all sorts of social obligations just by saying you're too tired.

No one can really honestly be the very best, no one.

I've lived in Egypt among Christians and Muslims, and we never had a conflict. Now you have a conflict between Christians and Muslims and Baha'is and Sunni and Shia.

Power is always right, weakness always wrong. Power is always insolent and despotic.

Culture and, within culture, music are the best and most fascinating thing that the German capital has to offer internationally. It is putting that at risk.

Lipgloss is my calling!

I agree with you about the music of today. It lacks style and emotion.

In dreams begin responsibilitiy.