The worst thing about film, from my point of view, is that it cripples illusions which I have encouraged people to create in their heads. Film doesn't create illusion. It makes them impossible. It is a bullying form of reality, like the model rooms in the furniture department of Bloomingdale's.

The other American divisions on our flanks managed to pull out: We were obliged to stay and fight. Bayonets aren't much good against tanks.

Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician.

I beg you to believe the most ridiculous superstition of all: that humanity is at the center of the universe, the fulfiller or frustrateor of the grandest dreams of God Almighty.

My ancestors were Freethinkers - and that's what I am, except we're called secular humanists now.

Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber.

Make war not on terrorism but on ignorance, on sickness and on environmental degradation.