“Talent? What is talent but the ability to get away with something?”

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.

To change is to live, to live is to change, and not to change is to die.

I have always been more interested in creating a character that contains something crippled. I think nearly all of us have some kind of defect.

A bedroom is just as nice as whoever sleeps in it with you.

We lose the magic whenever we stop telling our story and begin to wonder how we’re doing, if we’re selling it, if the listener likes us.

Don’t look forward to the day you stop suffering, because when it comes you’ll know you’re dead.

We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.

The object of art is to make eternal the desperately fleeting moment.

If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.

But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really.

An artist must believe in himself – Possibly not so passionately as Lawrence – but passionately.

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

It is only in his work that an artist can find reality and satisfaction, for the actual world is less intense than the world of his invention and consequently his life, without recourse to violent disorder, does not seem very substantial.

I try to work every day because you have no refuge but writing.

William Saroyan wrote a great play on this theme, that purity of heart is the one success worth having. “In the time of your life–live!”

The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love.

Islam will win with or without you, but without Islam you will get lost and lose.

I get on with all my exes, so there’s nothing I need to forget about. I don’t know – life is shorter than it seems.

You never get it back, but to this day I don’t regret splitting up.

The way to get things out of a government is to back them to the wall, put your hands to their throats, and you will get all they have.

Philosophy gets its ugly head into everything, but I don’t think we live philosophy anymore. It’s done.

And when they don’t get what they want, say, “Okay, sweetheart, yours is coming. Let’s help you get it.” Be there 100% for them.

I came from really humble beginnings – the projects of New York City – and I worked my way to get to where I am.

They only go after what they know they can get.