“I certainly believe there are forces bigger than ourselves, and that we should be searching, individually, for meaning in our lives. But I don’t believe there’s a supreme being, an intelligence that created everything.”

In a world without future, each moment is the end of the world.

The history of science can be viewed as the recasting of phenomena that were once thought to be accidents as phenomena that can be understood in terms of fundamental causes and principles.

The argument goes that if the past has uncertain effect on the present, there is no need to dwell on the past.

For it is only habit and memory that dulls the physical passion. Without memory, each night is the first night, each morning is the first morning, each kiss and touch are the first.

I’m humbled and enormously grateful to be connected to [Franz] Kafka in a any way. He is one of the writers I admire. I think he has been a big influence on me.

There are the alpha waves in the brain; another clock is the heart. And all the while tick the mysterious, ruthless clocks that regulate aging.

Novels aren’t pedagogical instruments, or instructions in law or physics or any other discipline.

But rational thoughts lead only to rational thoughts, whereas irrational thoughts lead to new experiences.

I re-read a lot of books that I like a lot. There are some books that I try to reread every couple of years. A good book changes for you every few years because you are in a different place in your own life.

Children curse their parents for their wrinkled skin and hoarse voices. Those now old children also want to stop time, but at another time. They want to freeze their own children at the center of time.

For while the movements of people are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable. While people can be doubted, time cannot be doubted. While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back.

I love the fact publishers are still publishing unprofitable material. It’s a challenge to the powers that be. It’s saying there is a real literature in this country and we will keep publishing it.

So many little lives, amounting to nothing. I ask you: What is infinity multiplied by zero? It is hardly worth our discussion.

No one ever expects poetry to sell…

I have always loved magic realism as a form of writing.

The urge to discover, to invent, to know the unknown, seems so deeply human that we cannot imagine our history without it.

My father is my idol, so I always did everything like him. He used to work two jobs and still come home happy every night.

I’m sure that I don’t know everything I want to know. I have so much more to learn.

In everything give thanks

In libertinage, nothing is frightful, because everything libertinage suggests is also a natural inspiration.

We achieve everything by our efforts alone. Our fate is not decided by an almighty God. We decide our own fate by our actions. You have to gain mystery over yourself. It is not a matter of sitting back and accepting.

To dislike the clothes and voices of other men – all this was precious to her beyond everything.

It’s a great freedom to give up on love, and get on with everything else.

What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story’s voice makes everything its own.