[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.

It's [Los Angeles] mostly full of nonsense and delusion and egomania. They think they'll be young and beautiful forever, even though most of them aren't even young and beautiful now.

Cheap booze is a false economy.

I'm very happy by myself - I'm lucky in that way - if I've got enough to read and something to write about and a bit of alcohol for me to add an edge, not to dull it.

The true essence of a dictatorship is in fact not its regularity but its unpredictability and caprice; those who live under it must never be able to relax, must never be quite sure if they have followed the rules correctly or not.

If the Qur'an was the word of God, it had been dictated on a very bad day.

The concept of loneliness and exile and self-sufficiency continually bucks me up.