It's almost impossible to read a fine thing without wanting to do a fine thing.

I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.

After the bare requisites to living and reproducing, man wants most to leave some record of himself, a proof, perhaps, that he has really existed. He leaves his proof on wood, on stone or on the lives of other people. This deep desire exists in everyone, from the boy who writes dirty words in a public toilet to the Buddha who etches his image in the race mind. Life is so unreal. I think that we seriously doubt that we exist and go about trying to prove that we do.

There is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter.

We gather our arms full of guilt as though it were precious stuff. It must be that we want it that way.

A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers.

When you're a child you're the center of everything. Everything happens for you. Other people? They're only ghosts furnished for you to talk to.