There are neither good nor evil, only the existence and action.

Religion will never show the way.

His mind was like a soup dish, wide and shallow; it could hold a small amount of nearly anything, but the slightest jarring spilled the soup into somebody's lap

To try to understand another human being, to grapple for his ultimate depths, that is the most dangerous of human endeavors.

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

Someday my paintings will be hanging in the Louvre. [Vincent Van Gogh]

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.