“No, I don’t think it’s fair to label Islam ‘violent.’ But I will say that to my knowledge, no writer has ever gone into hiding for criticizing the Amish.”

I admit it: above all things, I fear absurdity.

People can do bad things with free speech as well as good. You have to defend the Ku Klux Klan as well as Martin Luther King. It’s like that. If you’re going to defend the principle, then you have to defend people who use the principle badly.

Only the foolish, blinded by language’s conventions, think of fire as red or gold. Fire is blue at it’s melancholy rim, green in it’s envious heart. It may burn white, or even, in it’s greatest rages, black.

Ignorantly is how we all fall in love; for it is a kind of fall. Closing our eyes, we leap from that cliff in hope of a soft landing. Nor is it always soft; but still, without that leap nobody comes to life.

He knew what he knew: that the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real.

You can find shame in every house, burning in an ashtray, hanging framed upon a wall, covering a bed. But nobody notices it any more.

To understand just one life you have to swallow the world do you wonder, then, that I was a heavy child?

Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart.

The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.

It seems that the right of freedom of speech that was enshrined in numerous constitutions is now under attack by religious institutions.

Once you put a thought into the world, it can be disagreed with, but it can’t be unthought.

We all owe death a life.

What I do think is evident is that those countries in the world where Islamic extremism has recovered the most power, those are also the countries which are most disliked.

Religion is responsible for a lot of the problems in the history of the world and it’s not something that I practice or recommend, but to each his own.

But there’s one thing we must all be clear about: terrorism is not the pursuit of legitimate goals by some sort of illegitimate means. Whatever the murderers may be trying to achieve, creating a better world certainly isn’t one of their goals. Instead they are out to murder innocent people.

My horizon’s have shrunk and I have only endings to write.

Most of my critics don’t even listen to me; they are clueless. They just go to Web sites that report what I say out of context.

Critics haven’t taught me my cricket, and they don’t know what my body and mind are up to.

Art is to look at not to criticize.

Paranoiac-critical activity makes the world of delirium pass onto the plane of reality.

The money can be a hindrance to someone like me because the danger is that you start thinking, ‘Is that a $20 million take?’ That kind of thing, and being self-critical.

Don’t criticize that man unless you have walked in his shoes.

Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose

Constantly seek criticism. A well thought out critique of what you’re doing is as valuable as gold.