Writing should be like skirts. Long enough to cover what it needs to cover and short enough to maintain interest.

I just realized that I never look at a painting and ask, 'Is this painting fictional or non-fictional?' It’s just a painting.

Samuel Clemens isn't Mark Twain. Mark Twain is Mark Twain. He doesn't become the thing until he creates himself.

I have no interest in being a trained ballerina. People should dance how they want to dance. I want to be the funky chicken.

We like something because someone else liked it.

It's like that where these little anecdotes come through, and I guess that's what I like about books like that [He Stopped Loving Her Today]. Fiction now is so experiential.

The things that I have loved have always been those extremes where there has been some kind of apocalypse in the person's life, and they come out unscathed or scathed.

So much of our culture is bought and manufactured - not to say great art can't come out of that. Some art is really amazing that is manufactured and sold, like action movies and stuff.

I guess the things I have always loved are from people who were just being themselves. They were doing these things because they couldn't do it any other way. It was for them.

I think maybe it's my personality. People don't like my face.

It's weird. People want you to know that they write. They want you to know they're a musician, rather than making music or making stories. It's the strangest thing.

Love's pure free joy when it works, but when it goes bad you pay for the good hours at loan-shark prices.

War was forced upon mankind in his original civil and social condition.

I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash.

A dissolute and intemperate youth hands down the body to old age in a worn-out state.

I often think my life would be a lot easier if I were a mute.

There's this British elegance that we, at times, have really missed in the States. We've always been more of a sportswear culture.

People around the world just want self-respect. They want to take care of themselves, they want to pay for their own bills, they want to take care of their families.

Since the beginning of recorded history, the business of government has been wealth confiscation.

People and their managers are working so hard to be sure things are done right, that they have hardly have time to decide if they are doing the right things.

If you can tell me who your heroes are, I can tell you how you're going to turn out in life.