Whenever I finish a book, I go off and have some kind of adventure. Having had an adventure in my writing chair or on my writing sofa, an internal adventure, then I need to balance that off with an external adventure, so I'll go tramping through Africa or whitewater rafting or float to Hawaii in a martini shaker or something.

People write memoirs because they lack the imagination to make things up.

Some marriages are made in heaven, Mine was made in Hong Kong, by the same people who make those little rubber pork chops they sell in the pet department at Kmart.

The enemy is every expert who practices technocratic manipulation, the enemy is every proponent of standardization and the enemy is every victim who is so dull and lazy and weak as to allow himself to be manipulated and standardized.

A lot of my work comes from what in Asia is called the 'mind of wonder.' There is not a lot of 'mind of wonder' writing in contemporary Western literature. I think that's what appeals to the readers who are my fans.

I'm probably more interested in sentences than anything else in life.

Political activism is seductive because it seems to offer the possibility that one can improve society, make things better, without going through the personal ordeal of rearranging one's perceptions and transforming one's self.