A life of writing books is a trying adventure in which you cannot find out where you are unless you lose your way.

Philip Roth

True intelligence requires fabulous imagination.

The moment you lose curiosity in the world, you might as well be dead.

...falling in love could be achieved in a single word—a glance.

For a pure sense of being tumultuously alive, you can't beat the nasty side of existence.

It's amazing how much punishment we can take.

Being in the dark from sentence to sentence is what convinces me to go on.

You have a conscience, and a conscience is a valuable attribute, but not if it begins to make you think you were to blame for what is far beyond the scope of your responsibility.

Unless one is inordinately fond of subordination, one is always at war.

Too late, but I understand. That we don't perish of understanding everything too late, that is a miracle. But we do perish of that -- of just that.

I came to New York and in only hours, New York did what it does to people: awakened the possibilities. Hope breaks out.

Don't judge it. Just write it. Don't judge it. It's not for you to judge it.

There’s no remaking reality... Just take it as it comes. Hold your ground and take it as it comes. There’s no other way.

Nothing bad can happen to a writer. Everything is material.

The horror of being caged has lost its thrill.

Literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared. It requires silence, some form of isolation, and sustained concentration in the presence of an enigmatic thing.