Amy hated--hated--the way the grown-ups her parents had surrounded themselves with were so quick to offer prayers and so low to actually do anything. Old women who barely left the house for anything but bingo and congratulated themselves on never dri...
People looking for easy answers to big problems. People that blame the Jews or colored folks for all the bad things that happen to ‘em. People that can’t realize that a heck of a lot of things are bound to go wrong in a world as big as this one. ...
Some people create war and misery, some create wealth and money, and some create ideas and art. But we all create our own deaths, fashioned out of our lives. Nobody will remember how you died, if nobody remembers how you lived. Forgoing freak acciden...
There is no need to search; achievement leads to nowhere. It makes no difference at all, so just be happy now! Love is the only reality of the world, because it is all One, you see. And the only laws are paradox, humor and change. There is no problem...
Of course, he showed me this one afternoon when he was skipping class. When trolls cut classes, you think they are losers. When the beautiful and/or reasonably erudite do the same thing to sit on the library steps and read poetry, you think they are ...
Every run is a work of art, a drawing on each day's canvas. Some runs are shouts and some runs are whispers. Some runs are eulogies and others celebrations. When you're angry, a run can be a sharp slap in the face. When happy, a run is your song. And...
When I met a truly beautiful girl, I would tell her that if she spent the night with me, I would write a novel or a story about her. This usually worked; and if her name was to be in the title of the story, it almost always worked. Then, later, when ...
If you make art, people will talk about it. Some of the things they say will be nice, some won’t. You’ll already have made that art, and when they’re talking about the last thing you did, you should already be making the next thing. If bad revi...
I do enjoy writing, and I hope someone gets something interesting out of this book. I already have. Now, If I ever have to write a book that is not about me, I may be totally stumped and have writer's block. We will see. Writing is very convenient, h...
If one starts with the anatomical difference, which even a patriarchal Viennese novelist was able to see was destiny, then one begins to understand why men and women don't get on very well within marriage, or indeed in any exclusive sort of long-rang...
We have a bad habit of seeing books as sort of cheaply made movies where the words do nothing but create visual narratives in our heads. So too often what passes for literary criticism is "I couldn't picture that guy", or "I liked that part", or "thi...
[Talking in code on a tapped phone] Nicky Santoro: Listen, I gotta meet Clean Face right away, what about the Chez Paris? Nicky Santoro: [subtitles] I gotta meet Charlie the Banker right away at your house, OK? Ace Rothstein: No, you can't, you gotta...
[Nazi Colonel Vogel is torturing Henry to get answers] Colonel Vogel: Tell me about this miserable little diary of yours. The book is useless and yet you come all the way back to Berlin to get it. Why? [he slaps Henry in the face with his glove] Colo...
But one learns from books and reels only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.
Somewhere embedded in every ordinary book are the five or six words for which really all the rest will be written.
Take what interests and knowledge you can from books, but do not let them replace words and thoughts of your own.
One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.
When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
The ways of fate are indeed hard to understand. If there is not some compensation hereafter, then the world is a cruel jest.
Where you read a book and when and with whom can make a big difference.
It is the taste of cut steps, bloody fingerprints. Of healed books, smiles on fresh tulips. Of longing and sweet fatigue.
