When I was 21 I wanted to write like Kafka. But, unfortunately for me, I wrote like a script editor for The Simpsons who'd briefly joined a religious cult and then discovered Foucault. Such is life.

You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

Time is how you spend your love.

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.

Don't confuse honours with achievement.

Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.

Love is always more than friendship.

However, if the long shot is your only shot, then you have to take it.

They say if you're a better person today than you were yesterday you're well on the road to perfection. So I figure if I'm a real snot today, tomorrow I should make huge progress.

You're about as delicate as an AK-47.

It's time for those of us who have a voice to speak out for life, for love and for justice using the same media we've used throughout our careers.

Go down to the corner store and beat the Jap up, clean all the crap up.

Oh, yes, thy sins Do run before thee to fetch fire from hell, To light thee thither.

I always recommend people read nutrition labels so they know, for instance, how much fiber they're getting.

No, it has not been hard to grow older, because I believe if you have something you believe in that will keep you alive far more than plastic surgery or Botox.

It becomes an emperor to die standing.