I think of myself as a very lazy writer, though other people see it differently.

A sentence has meaning in the sense that a train has a track, not that a train has a passenger.

It’s a very new, not to mention vulgar, idea that the spectator’s experience should be identical to, or even have anything to do with, the artist’s.

The only important elements in any society are the artistic and the criminal, because they alone, by questioning the society’s values, can force it to change.

It is a magic book. Words mean things. When you put them together they speak. Yes, sometimes they flatten out and nothing they say is real, and that is one kind of magic. But sometimes a vision will rip up from them and shriek and clank wings clear as the sweat smudge on the paper under your thumb. And that is another kind.

The problem isn't to learn to love humanity, but to learn to love those members of it who happen to be at hand.

I want to read about a character doing something fairly quiet where I can picture who the character is, and what their attitude towards the world is - which I'm a lot more interested in than what they do under the pressure of a gunfight.