Reality is something the human race doesn't handle very well.

First coffee, then a bowel movement. Then the Muse joins me.

It is not enough merely to win; others must lose.

Writing when you are already very old means you have lived through the endings of so many things, you are more aware of the shape life takes. You begin to know Death, you've been close to it. But youth can barely imagine the end of this journey.

Most writers write books that they wouldn't read. I ought to know; I've done it myself.

I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam - good people, yes, but any religion based on a single, well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system.

Politics is made up of two words: "Poli," which is Greek for "many," and "tics," which are bloodsucking insects.