There’s no remaking reality... Just take it as it comes. Hold your ground and take it as it comes. There’s no other way.

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you - it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists.

He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.

You can no more make someone tell the truth than you can force someone to love you.

Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.

The horror of being caged has lost its thrill.

Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.

I have a slogan I use when I get anxious writing, which happens quite a bit: ‘the ordeal is part of the commitment.’ It’s one of my mantras. It makes a lot of things doable.

When the whole world doesn't believe in God, it'll be a great place.

Because that is when you love somebody - when you see them being game in the face of the worst. Not courageous. Not heroic. Just game.

99% of natural poets discovered their talents through love letters.

If you want to get a meaningful result: create something very complex, and then simplify it.

Nothing good is free, and nothing free is good. You want the world to change, you have to force that change behind gun smoke and lead. Blood is the price, always and ever, if you want to buy freedom.

This American system of ours,call it Americanism,call it capitalism,call it what you will,gives each and every one of us a great opportunity if we seize it with both hands and make the most of it.

To be a champion you must live like one.

He is very foolish who aims at satisfying all the world and his father.

Most musicians, regardless of what culture they come from, can get together and agree on some stuff about music. As there is going to be a common ground.

Economics is not a science, in the sense that a policy can be repeatedly applied under similar conditions and will repeatedly produce similar results.

It is impossible to distrust one's writing without awakening a deeper distrust in oneself.

Auri," I asked slowly, "are you joking with me?" She looked up and grinned. "Yes I am," she said proudly. "Isn't it wonderful?