I write all of my own speeches.

If one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure – the relationship so secret and private compared with relations with men. Why not write about it truthfully?

I learned from my dog long before I went to Gombe that we weren’t the only beings with personalities. What the chimps did was help me to persuade others.

Everything is an open book. I don’t speak on other people’s hardship, but if it happened in my life or something that has been an experience on my particular journey, I’m going to talk about it. That’s what my fan base appreciates the most. I’m universal. You can relate to the things I say or that I go through.

The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them.

I really wish I knew what I was doing because I’d be writing hit songs every minute.

I think you get most of the most interesting work done in fields where people don’t think they’re doing art but are merely practicing a craft and working as good craftsmen. Being literate as a writer is good craft, is knowing your job, is knowing how to use your tools properly and not to damage the tools as you use them.

I’ve never been shy or secretive with the fact that if you walk into my life, you may be walking onto a record.

In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.

I just write what I wanted to write. I write what amuses me. It’s totally for myself. I never in my wildest dreams expected this popularity.

When I write a book, I write a book for myself; the reaction is up to the reader. It’s not my business whether people like or dislike it.

Dickens is one of those authors who are well worth stealing.

People don’t realise how difficult it is to work with people day in and day out that know absolutely nothing.

There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.

So when I speak in front of thousands, tens of thousands of people, I don’t really get nervous because I know what I want to say and I know what message I want to give.

When I was a teenager, I thought how great it would be if only I could write novels in English. I had the feeling that I would be able to express my emotions so much more directly than if I wrote in Japanese.

I have no models in Japanese literature. I created my own style, my own way.

It’s human nature to not say everything that’s on your mind at the time you think it. Because we fear saying something that people will laugh at, people will think is dumb. We’re afraid of being embarrassed.

I don’t believe in ‚thinking‘ old. Although I’ve transitioned through many bodies – a baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, mid-life and older adult – my spirit is unchanged. I support my body with exercise, my mind with reading and writing, and my spirit with the knowing that I am part of the Divine source of all life.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do ever – was write novels.

Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.

You always have to remember that if you say something negative, it’s going to come back to haunt you.

And the idea of just wandering off to a cafe with a notebook and writing and seeing where that takes me for awhile is just bliss.

There are a lot of self-imposed restrictions by people who somehow believe they have to fall in with a certain military cant. There was always a sense that we had to put things into words that would touch our troops‘ hearts, not just their heads.

Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.

I still derive immense pleasure from remembering how many hod-carrying brickies were encouraged to put on lurex tights and mince up and down the high street, having been assured by know-it-alls like me that a smidgen of blusher really attracted the birds.

It is not, of course, complete yet – but some sentences were understood this afternoon… I feel that I have at last struck the solution of a great problem – and the day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid onto houses just like water or gas – and friends converse with each other without leaving home.

When you walk out onstage in front of 65,000 people, it can bring you to tears.

If you’re a politician, you might want to learn the Buddhist way of negotiation. Restoring communication and bringing back reconciliation is clear and concrete in Buddhism.

A woman will doubt everything you say except it be compliments to herself.

I said I was ‚The Greatest,‘ I never said I was the smartest!

If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.

I’m totally myself.

Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.

I’ve always appreciated a turn of phrase.

The American public’s a lot more sophisticated than we all give them credit for. And on complicated issues, I’m going to give them straight answers. And if it takes more than three minutes, I’m going to do it.

I love making music. That’s what I love to do. So I don’t feel like there’s any need to take a break unless I want to.

I think humans are just hard-wired to process people’s faces and understand meaning and expression at such a more granular level than other types of communication.

You’re not going to make Hemingway better by adding animations.

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.

Here in the West, people often don’t like listening to their leaders, even if they are right.

It’s really fun to be on stage in front of people.

I have my own vocabulary. I love linguistics. That surprises people.

If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up.

Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.

I don’t feel very comfortable defending my fashion except to say that people don’t have to buy it. You do have to consume. You have to live. If you’ve got the money to be able to afford it, then it’s really good to buy something from me, but don’t buy too much.

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.

A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

The major advances in speed of communication and ability to interact took place more than a century ago. The shift from sailing ships to telegraph was far more radical than that from telephone to email!

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

I started writing at the kitchen table after midnight. It took ten months to finish that first book; I sent it to a publisher and I got some kind of prize, so it was like a dream – I was surprised to find it happening.

If you’re too big to fit into fashion, then you just have to do your own fashion.

Reduce your plan to writing. The moment you complete this, you will have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire.

You have to be careful about how much you reveal to people that look up to you so much.

Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.

I think, a lot of times when you meet someone, you feel like you need to appear like you’re not interested in them so that they’ll be more interested in you. But what happens when you start showing him that you actually like him? What’s he gonna do then? Play the tape forward; how do you keep a guy like that? I don’t want to sign up for that.

If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don’t say, ‚You don’t know how to use the English language,‘ or ‚How could you make that argument?‘ It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.

So many writers don’t like to write… I like to write, and sometimes I’m afraid I like it too much, because when I get into work, I don’t want to leave it. And as a result, I’ll go for days and days and days without leaving my house.

In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.

Writing bores me so.