To leave the world a little better than you found it. That's the best a man can ever do.
Paul AusterOnce you finish a book, it doesn't belong to you anymore. You're giving it to other people. If something in what a writer writes can excite the imagination and the feelings of the reader, then that reader carries it around forever. Nothing is more vivid than good fiction.
Paul AusterI have difficulty orienting myself in space, and I'm probably one of the few people who gets lost in Manhattan.
Paul AusterI don't think about the stories so much, as the characters themselves. They live on, and they are almost as real as I am.
Paul AusterGenerally, I don't want to do things. I feel lazy and unmotivated. It's only when an idea grabs hold of me and I can't get rid of it, when I try not to think about it and yet it's ambushing me all the time. I'm thrown up against a wall. The idea is saying to me, "You have to pay attention to me because I am going to be the future of your life for the next year or two or five." Then I submit. I get into it. It's something that becomes so necessary to me that I can't live without doing that project.
Paul Auster