Writing fiction is an endless and always defeated effort to capture some quality of life without killing it.

A kiss without a mustache is like an egg without salt.

As an American I am of course fundamentally opposed to democracy and to anyone advocating or defending democracy, which in theory and practice is the basis of socialism.

Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don't even remember leaving open.

Men in Government monopolize the necessary use of force; they are not using their energies productively; they are not milking cows. To get butter, they must use guns; they have nothing else to use.

No state, no government exists. What does in fact exist is a man, or a few men, in power over many men.

What I can't understand is, how can anybody figure now that the government can support us, when we support the government.

It was not seen that woman's place was in the home until she began to go out of it; the statement was a reply to an unspoken challenge, it was attempted resistance to irresistible change.

The need for Government is the need for force; where force is unnecessary, there is no need for Government.

We are never aware of the present; each instant of living becomes perceptible only when it is past, so that in a sense we do not live at all, but only remember living.

I'm not "filled with my art". I ain't got no art. I've got only a kind of craftsman's skill, and make stories as I make biscuits or embroider underwear or wrap up packages.

Iron. Ice.A Love Doomed From the Start

Kiss someone like it's the last one you give.

I learned that pretending you don't have feelings makes you feel unhappy and unfulfilled and, ultimately, is what really makes you vulnerable because you are hiding from the truth.

What's interesting in archaeology is that we always understand other cultures by digging up their cities; architecture is almost always a way for us to formulate a diagram of how people used to live.

What's plan b?' 'We all die now.' 'What's plan c?

If you talking 'bout classics, do my name get brought up?

The very people you trusted most could become like strangers in their longing.

There's the space that you soar into, the space that you sometimes break through to, and hang in. A sort of gasp or gap.

I'm very scared, Buster. Yes, at last. Because it could go on forever. Not knowing what's yours until you've thrown it away.

Look at this tangle of thorns.