Paranoia has a sharper taste if the danger is real.

I’ve never had anyone’s approval, so I’ve learned to live without it.

Like everything else, love's not worth much without some action to back it up.

I still write in long hand. I type like a chimpanzee.

The most powerful words in English are 'Tell me a story,' words that are intimately related to the complexity of history, the origins of language, the continuity of the species, the taproot of our humanity, our singularity, and art itself. I was born into the century in which novels lost their stories, poems their rhymes, paintings their form, and music its beauty, but that does not mean I had to like that trend or go along with it. I fight against these movements with every book I write.

He was one of those rare men who are capable of being fully in love only once in their lives.

Books are living things and their task lies in their vows of silence. You touch them as they quiver with a divine pleasure. You read them and they fall asleep to happy dreams for the next 10 years. If you do them the favor of understanding them, of taking in their portions of grief and wisdom, then they settle down in contented residence in your heart.