You know what the game of golf is, don't you? It's basketball for people who can't jump and chess for people who can't think.

I travel in gardens and bedrooms, basements and attics, around corners, through doorways and windows, along sidewalks, over carpets, down drainpipes, in the sky, with friends, lovers, children and heros; perceived, remembered, imagined, distorted and clarified.

The only authority I respect is the one that causes butterflies to fly south in fall and north in springtime.

Love is very powerful, but it has limits and it's a costly mistake to spread it too thin.

I could say I believe in every drop of rain that . . . Well, I believe life is a Zen koan, that is, an unsolvable riddle. But the contemplation of that riddle--even though it cannot be solved--is, in itself, transformative. And if the contemplation is of high enough quality, you can merge with the divine.

Laughter is holier than piety, freedom is sweeter than fame, and in the end it's love and love alone that really matters.

Get yourself in that intense state of being next to madness. Keep yourself in, not necessarily a frenzied state, but in a state of great intensity. The kind of state you would be in before going to bed with your partner. That heightened state when you're in a carnal embrace: time stops and nothing else matters. You should always write with an erection. Even if you're a woman.