It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.

Dissensions between Muslim nations run at least as deep, if not deeper, than those nations' resentment of the West.

Too many people had spent too long demonizing or totemizing me to listen seriously to what I had to say.

I always thought storytelling was like juggling [...] You keep a lot of different tales in the air, and juggle them up and down, and if you're good you don't drop any.

A book is a product of a pact with the Devil that inverts the Faustian contract, he'd told Allie. Dr Faustus sacrificed eternity in return for two dozen years of power; the writer agrees to the ruination of his life, and gains (but only if he's lucky) maybe not eternity, but posterity, at least. Either way (this was Jumpy's point) it's the Devil who wins.

People are always telling me that they've seen people reading my books on the subway, or the beach, or whenever.

Make as much racket as you like people. Noise is life and an excess of noise is a sign that life is good. There will be time for us all to be quiet when we are safely dead.