What I have is a malevolent curiosity. That’s what drives my need to write and what probably leads me to look at things a little askew. I do tend to take a different perspective from most people.

Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.

It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.

Say not, ‚I have found the truth,‘ but rather, ‚I have found a truth.‘

Freedom is relative.

I’ve written some great things. That’s a gift, but there’s consequences. Yeah, you get this great work, but you suffer. You really, really suffer.

What do I think of Western civilization? I think it would be a very good idea.

The things most people want to know about are usually none of their business.

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

The thing about the 600 words, I mean some day, you can do a very, very, very hard day’s work and not write a word, just revising, or you would scribble a few words.

Truths and roses have thorns about them.

I have the ’77 Million Paintings‘ running in my studio a lot of the time. Occasionally I’ll look up from what I’m doing and I think, ‚God, I’ve never seen anything like that before!‘ And that’s a real thrill.

Creativity is the key to success in the future, and primary education is where teachers can bring creativity in children at that level.

I can’t see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That’s terrible.

I think you can give a pure artistic product if you understand how to build your own industry.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.

When you go to war as a boy, you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed, not you… Then, when you are badly wounded the first time, you lose that illusion, and you know it can happen to you.

Collecting facts is important. Knowledge is important. But if you don’t have an imagination to use the knowledge, civilization is nowhere.

This soul, or life within us, by no means agrees with the life outside us. If one has the courage to ask her what she thinks, she is always saying the very opposite to what other people say.

I really, truly believe that writing comes out of the body; of course, the mind is working as well, but it’s a double thing and that doubleness is united. I mean, you can’t separate persona from psyche; you just can’t do it.

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.

We do not hate as long as we still attach a lesser value, but only when we attach an equal or a greater value.

I’ve always felt that what I have going for me is not my imagination, because everyone has an imagination. What I have is a relentlessly controlled imagination. What looks like wild invention is actually quite carefully calculated.

I have found out in later years that we were very poor, but the glory of America is that we didn’t know it then.

Everybody has a creative potential and from the moment you can express this creative potential, you can start changing the world.

I only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don’t even know I’m working on. It’s a free lunch. A free dinner. I don’t know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing.

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

I can remember being home from school with tonsillitis and writing stories in bed to pass the time.

At Cornell University, my professor of European literature, Vladimir Nabokov, changed the way I read and the way I write. Words could paint pictures, I learned from him. Choosing the right word, and the right word order, he illustrated, could make an enormous difference in conveying an image or an idea.

We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.

There is only one position for an artist anywhere; and that is upright.

It took me 40 years to write my first book. When I was a child, I was encouraged to go to school. I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death.

I write screenplays in the middle of the night.

The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.

You have to understand that people that are hurting are going to criticize.

Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.

Eating words has never given me indigestion.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

‚Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.

I’m always just surprised when someone writes something about me.

If you write in the same way over and over again, like, in the same place with the same techniques and with the same people, you’re sort of writing the same song over and over again.

Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

Your joy comes from how you think, the choices that we make in life.

From my standpoint, being an artist, I want to see what the new construction is between artist and audience.

I just make the pictures and where they fall is where they fall. If somebody likes them, that’s always nice. And if they don’t like them, then too bad.

There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.

We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.

I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.

I try to do the fancy things out there by going with both hands, making crossover moves, and having a certain creativity and flair to my game.

I’m fascinated by musicians who don’t completely understand their territory; that’s when you do your best work.

There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.

One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes; you move to places you wouldn’t if you knew better.

It’s so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see one.

I like some animals more than some people, some people more than some animals.

When I was five, I think, that’s when I started wanting to be an actress. I loved to play. I didn’t like the world around me because it was kind of grim, but I loved to play house. It was like you could make your own boundaries.

Writing for other artists helped me figure out that magic you have to capture to make everyone connect with a song.