For to sit in a room full of books, and remember the stories they told you, and to know precisely where each one is located and what was happening in your life at time or where you were when you first read it is the languid and distilled pleasure of the connoisseur.

Nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could, for all those born beneath an angry star, lest we forget how fragile we are.

Melancholy is no bad thing.

If I were a Brazilian without land or money or the means to feed my children, I would be burning the rain forest too.

I don't think happiness is necessarily the reason we're here. I think we're here to learn and evolve, and the pursuit of knowledge is what alleviates the pain of being human.

If you make your living writing, and you can't write anything, it's over. It's very frightening.

My friends are Peter Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen, and we're singing about mortality, getting older. It's an interesting time.