But there are still the hours, aren't there? One and then another, and you get through that one and then, my god, there's another.

The secret of flight is this -- you have to do it immediately, before your body realizes it is defying the laws.

I have no useful theories about love and marriage.

A certain slightly cruel disregard for the feelings of living people is simply part of the package. I think a writer, if hes any good, is not an entirely benign entity in the world.

Sure, go ahead, simulate life, using only ink and paper.

Perhaps, in the extravagance of youth, we give away our devotions easily and all but arbitrarily, on the mistaken assumption that we’ll always have more to give.

I encourage the translators of my books to take as much license as they feel that they need. This is not quite the heroic gesture it might seem, because I've learned, from working with translators over the years, that the original novel is, in a way, a translation itself.