Sometimes fiction is more easily understood than true events. Reality is often pathetic.

And still everything’s the same, even though I did my best to get as far away as I could.

Why does nothing change, even when you set out for a faraway place?

A novel, basically, is writing one sentence — then, without violating the scope of the first one, writing the next sentence.

A revolution cannot progress without the fuel of terror. With time that relationship inverts: the revolution presses forward for the sake of terror. Like an artist, the man creating terror should be detached, cold-blooded. He must keep in mind that the energy of the terror he releases can consume him.

We are all born artists. ... Almost everything kids do is art.

People who don’t know how to summarize have no dignity. Neither do people who needlessly drag on their messy lives. They who don’t know the beauty of simplification, of pruning away the unnecessary, die without ever comprehending the true meaning of life.