“Certain things, they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.”

I’m sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.

I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.

You don’t know how to talk to people you don’t like. Don’t love, really. You can’t live in the world with such strong likes and dislikes.

You can’t stop a teacher when they want to do something. They just do it.

I could happily lie down and die sometimes.

Do you know what I was smiling at? You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It’s never been anything but your religion.

And I have one of those very loud, stupid laughs. I mean if I ever sat behind myself in a movie or something, I’d probably lean over and tell myself to please shut up.

All morons hate it when you call them a moron.

People are always ruining things for you.

People are mostly hot to have a discussion when you’re not.

The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it.

There are nice things in the world – and I mean nice things. We’re all such morons to get so sidetracked.

Sometimes you get tired of riding in taxicabs the same way you get tired riding in elevators. All of a sudden, you have to walk, no matter how far or how high up.

I have so much I want to tell you, and nowhere to begin.

You don’t have to think too hard when you talk to teachers.

I have scars on my hands from touching certain people.

In Bali life is a rhythmic, patterned unreality of pleasant, significant movement, centered in one’s own body to which all emotions long ago withdrew.

The assumption that men and woman are essentially alike in all respects, or even in the most important ones, is a damaging one, as damaging as the assumption that they are different in ways in which they aren’t different, perhaps more so.

Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.

The third level of wanting is “I commit to being rich.” The definition of the word commit is to “devote oneself unreservedly.” This means holding absolutely nothing back; giving 100 percent of everything you’ve got to achieving wealth.

One is sorry one could not have taken both branches of the road. But we were not allotted multiple selves.

I don’t watch TV. I think it destroys the art of talking about oneself.

Monogamous heterosexual love is probably one of the most difficult, complex and demanding of human relationships.

Being compared to Ian Thorpe, that could be one of the greatest compliments you could ever get in swimming – being compared to him and Mark Spitz.