I rather like the smell of absurdity in the morning.

The beauty of simplicity is the complexity it attracts.

Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.

If the novelist isn't surprised by where his book ends up, he or she probably hasn't written anything worth remembering.

Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm. There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay? Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself.

Maybe what I admired most about John Steinbeck is that he never mortgaged his 45-acre heart for a suite in an ivory tower.

Summer had come to sit on New York's face.