You must find another reason to work, other than the desire for success or recognition. It must come from another place.

Devotion is diligence without assurance. If faith were rational, it wouldn't be by definition faith. Faith is walking face-first and full speed into the dark.

Bhuta ia, dewa ia. (Bali expression meaning Man is a demon, man is a god.)

The act of quiet nighttime talking, illustrates for me more than anything else the curious alchemy of companionship.

[Saint Anthony] said, in his solitude, he sometimes encountered devils who looked like angels, and other times he found angels who looked like devils. When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that you can only tell which is which by the way you feel after the creature has left your company.

A lot of [erotica] was really interestingly disguised in the 19th-century as medical journals. So it would be in the voice of a learned doctor talking about somebody's pathologies. And then it would get really detailed. And then it would get really sweaty. And then you're like, "This isn't a doctor! I would like to see a degree, Mister!"

I was a bartender for a long time, so I know how to make drinks, but I'm more likely to offer them than to have them. I think this is one of the reasons why I get to live longer than my great-grandmother did, and why I get to produce more writing than she did, and why my marriage isn't in dire straits.