I no longer feel attracted to the well-made novel. I want to write the story that will zero in and give you intense, but not connected, moments of experience. I guess that’s the way I see life. People remake themselves bit by bit and do things they don’t understand.

If I wasn’t Bob Dylan, I’d probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.

Except for the young or very happy, I can’t say I am sorry for anyone who dies.

I woke up one day and thought: ‚I want to write a book about the history of my body.‘ I could justify talking about my mother because it was in her body that my body began.

There is no wealth but life.

If I waited for perfection… I would never write a word.

I’m not trying to follow a set of rules and stuff. I’m just living my life.

I’m half living my life between reality and fantasy at all times.

But I think we’re also just talking about the literacy of the audience. The visual literacy of the audience. They’ve seen so many images now, especially here in the States. There’s so much to look at, to watch. So the visual storytelling literacy is harder to impress.

I created myself. I have taught myself so much.

Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.

A veteran journalist has never had time to think twice before he writes.

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.

The art is long, life is short.

It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

I’m going to be so much better a president for having been at the CIA that you’re not going to believe it.

Don’t say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

For me, a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its own music, its own integrity.

There are some Christian people who taste and see and enjoy religion in their own souls, and who get at a deeper knowledge of it than books can ever give them, though they should search all their days.

Life is so short. I would rather sing one song than interpret the thousand.

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.

I hoped to be able to write a novel which would enable me to live on it while I wrote the next.

I never wanted to be Marilyn – it just happened. Marilyn’s like a veil I wear over Norma Jeane.

I have an obsession with knowing the answers to things. When I don’t know what happened, it just bothers me, gets under my skin, and I need to write about it.

What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.

When we enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, something wonderful happens: God begins to change our desires, and we want to be more like Him.

I’m not afraid to look like a big, hairy, smelly, foreign devil in Tokyo, though I do my best not to, I really do.

There is always a present and extant life, be it better or worse, which all combine to uphold.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

We are wiser than we know.

Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‚Ego‘.

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

For me, the real earth is that chosen part of the universe, still almost universally dispersed and in course of gradual segregation, but which is little by little taking on body and form in Christ.

I’m not a writer who teaches. I’m a teacher who writes.

Somewhere deep down there’s a decent man in me, he just can’t be found.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

My heroes don’t have anything special. They have something to tell other people but they don’t know how, so they talk to themselves.

I was once a journalist. And I think of myself as a journalist, and that’s it. You tell the truth. I even wrote a book called ‚The Truth‘.

For me, the world that I inhabit in reality is probably a very different world than the one people expect that I would be in.

Be amusing: never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones.

Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.

When you cease to exist, then who will you blame?

You have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity.

Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.

Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes the pressure off the second.

I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man’s being unable to sit still in a room.

I used to go away for weeks in a state of confusion.

The rudiment of verse may, possibly, be found in the spondee.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one’s own character to himself.

I love to watch videos, and I’ve always liked to film and take pictures. I have an eye for really weird things that nobody thinks about. I used to make little movies about myself and then edit them on iMovie.

I’d have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.

Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I’ve never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl.

I’m a career prosecutor. I have been trained, and my experience over decades, is to make decisions after a review of the evidence and the facts. And not to jump up with grand gestures before I’ve done that. Some might interpret that as being cautious. I would tell you that’s just responsible.

If you wish to be a writer, write.

You are going to let the fear of poverty govern you life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

Although I write screenplays, I don’t think I’m a very good writer.