Adolescence is that time in your life when you discover your ability to be depressed.

Morality—like velocity—is relative. The determination of it depends on what the objects around you are doing. All one can do is measure one's position in relation to them; never can one measure one's velocity or morality in terms of absolutes.

I have a very simple philosophy of life: Kindness. Ferocious, unrelenting, ruthless, committed, passionate, kindness. Life is sacred everywhere. We all have better things to do than beat each other up. Arguing for the exception is to invest it with energy, it's to negotiate the loophole. The commitment to kindness must be total.

The avalanche of time sweeps everything before it. Every individual instant hurtles into oblivion, drowning out the obliteration of the instant immediately preceding it, and then it too disappears under the onslaught of the next and the next and the next. When the avalanche has shuddered past for a long enough time, the perception of the past evolves. Distant events grow beyond mere history and take on the weight of legend.

I had always been fascinated by the whole idea that Australia was this different ecology and that when rabbits and prickly pears and other things from Europe were introduced into Australia, they ran amok.

A work of art is an act of love. Critics are crab lice.

I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.