Whether we like it or not, the one justification for the existence of all religions is death, they need death as much as we need bread to eat.

There are plenty of reasons not to put up with the world as it is, and if the book has any kind of message, I suppose that's it.

I'm not pessimistic. It is the world that is terrible. How can we be optimistic in the face of a planet where people live so badly, nature is being destroyed and the dominant empire is money?

Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered

In a king, modesty would be a sign of weakness.

I never appreciated 'positive heroes' in literature. They are almost always cliches, copies of copies, until the model is exhausted. I prefer perplexity, doubt, uncertainty, not just because it provides a more 'productive' literary raw material, but because that is the way we humans really are.

I am the same person I was before receiving the Nobel Prize. I work with the same regularity, I have not modified my habits, I have the same friends.