The writer ... an athlete required to break the four-minute mile every morning.

Pleasure is one of the most important things in life, as important as food or drink.

Morality is similar to religion - it is a somniferous drug which blinds people from seeing the squalor of their lives.

Bleed me of art, and there won't be enough liquid left in me to spit! [Michelangelo Buonorotti]

Normal people do not create art.

We...believe that art is religious, because it is one of man's highest aspirations. There is no such thing as pagan art, only good and bad art.

I spend several years trying to get inside the brain and heart of my subjects, listening to the interior monologues in their letters, and when I have to bridge the chasms between the factual evidence, I try to make an intuitive leap through the eyes and motivation of the person I'm writing about.