We no longer believe because it is absurd: it is absurd because we must believe.

All profound distraction opens certain doors. You have to allow yourself to be distracted when you are unable to concentrate.

In quoting others, we cite ourselves.

Memory is a mirror that scandalously lies.

Wordplay hides a key to reality that the dictionary tries in vain to lock inside every free word.

(memory is) A strange echo, which stores its replicas according to some other acoustic than consciousness or expectation.

The modern story begun, one might say, with Edgar Allan Poe, which proceeds inexorably, like a machine destined to accomplish its mission with the maximum economy of means.

For me the thing that signals a great story is what we might call its autonomy, the fact that it detaches itself from its author like a soap bubble blown from a clay pipe.

I think it is vanity to want to put into a story anything but the story itself.

The more a book is like an opium pipe, the more the Chinaman reader is satisfied with it and tends to discuss the quality of the drug rather than its lethargic effects.

Nothing is more comical than seriousness understood as a virtue that has to precede all important literature

I wish you could be kissed, Jane, ' he said. 'Because I would beg just one off you. Under all this.' He flailed an arm toward the stars.

A Writer Drenched in Words is Never Caught in a Dry Spell

They inched through dense, heart-stopping darkness. In the distance was what looked like a bright white door cut out of a black wall. Sunni tiptoed towards it, puzzled by its brilliance.

Much sheer effort goes into avoiding the truth left to itself it sweeps in like the tide.

Ken, my husband, just smelled like he belonged to me. I'm not talking about hygiene. I'm talking about when you hug him, he either feels like a member of your tribe or not. It's their scent.

Terrorism is one of the cardinal sins that the Koran threatens with hellfire.

Above all, we are coming to understand that the arts incarnate the creativity of a free people.

A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.

Most of the stats say that 90% of people who buy a book or check one out of a library would never get past the first chapter. To me, the title better say everything there is to say about the book.

Unfortunately I think the Internet knows more about me than I do. I usually look it up to see what I'm going to be doing that next week.