The monkey liked most humans. They left food cans outside their homes for his family to rummage through in the morningsun. Some yelled and threw sticks, but were slow and didn’t bite. Humans were mostly...

A distinguished clergyman told me that he chose the profession of a clergyman because it afforded the most leisure for literary pursuits. I would recommend to him the profession of a governor.

Taxi-drivers in Frankfurt are said to dislike the annual Book Fair because literary folk, instead of being shuttled to prostitutes like respectable members of other convening professions, prefer to stay in their hotels and fuck...

I believe the visionaries and true reflections of society will be rewarded after their lives. Those being rewarded now are giving the public what it needs now, usually applauding its current state and clearing consciences.

You know how sometimes you remember a place you once loved, a movie you’ve enjoyed, only to be disappointed when you return to that place or see that movie for a second time? Well, it...

I’m intrigued by how ordinary behavior exists so close beside its opposite.

She was widely read enough to appreciate my literary wit but not so widely read that she knew my sources. I like that in a woman.

A quality novel is never completed on a full nights sleep.

During the Government’s recent overhaul of GCSEs, I was asked to join a consultative group advising on the English Literature syllabus. It quickly became clear that the minister wanted to prescribe two Shakespeare plays for...

We are all of the same substance, the same life. Though there are many differences between us, those are merely the shadows that delineate our boundaries. Our light is the same.

Kids never jumped head first from the top ledge. Never. It seemed forever beforeStoney came back to the surface. Most of the white bubbles had already disappeared.

I’ll bet opening a store called Boobs and Books would increase literacy. I prefer a hands-on approach to learning.

Writers are much better behaved nowadays, for a couple of reasons. Once upon a time nobody was thinking of a career, unless you lived in New York, so there wasn’t as much pressure to present...

Sometimes I still feel that there are two of me: one clean, flawless picture, the other imperfect and cracked; one boy, one girl; one voice that speaks aloud and one that whispers in my ear;...

I know I will always be attracted to the unknown as it does often verify what I am or what else I could be.

Someone who dreams cannot be forced to stop—there are no limitations to dreams, because we do not own dreams, dreams are from God.

It was as if they’d discovered something that had once been there but had gotten hidden or misunderstood or forgotten over time, and they were charmed by it once more, and by one another. Which...

Though I am sometimes reluctant to admit it, there really is something ‘timeless’ in the Tyndale/King James synthesis. For generations, it provided a common stock of references and allusions, rivalled only by Shakespeare in this...

The words bloom like Spring flowers and pullulate as falling leaves in Autumn. Fresh invigorate swirls of the pen delight the pages with imagery, symbolism, theater, and emotion that pulsates with the passion of an...

The first epics were intended for recitation; the literary epic is meant to be read.

{Letter from Fawcett to the great Robert Ingersoll, 1894}I do so wish, that, in all these big questions, literary men would take you more for a guide than they do, or seem to do. You...

Grandpa said that we could solve a lot of the world’s problems if we considered cats and dogs edible. Like the neighbor’s dog who goes to the bathroom in his flower garden. And know what...

Learn how to read by taking small sips first. Drink my watery literary nipples.

One recalls the literary writer who, after grasping a story of a Mars voyage as a metaphor for isolation and the precariousness of relationships, realized that at a deeper, more subtle level it might even...

Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him...

Shakespeare was shakespeare; whether untrussing, but still him.

All I want is to sleep–to dream. Life is better in dreams.

[Henry] James’s critical genius comes out most tellingly in his mastery over, his baffling escape from, Ideas; a mastery and an escape which are perhaps the last test of a superior intelligence. He had a...

Senor Sempere believed that God lives, to a smaller or greater extent, in books, and that is why he devoted his life to sharing them, to protecting them, and to making sure their pages, like...

3,000 words, for me, is an exceptional day. 1,500 of which are eventually crossed out, and 1,000 rearranged.

I am, yet I strive to not be. Do you understand, comrade?” His tone suggested fellowship, disciples of the same obscene religion. …

Whenever I’d get howlin’ over something, he’d grab my ass up from wherever I was and head straight for the john. Momma said my head would get banged up along the way, but she said...

What is more precious: a thousand answers derived from one question? Or, one answer…from a thousand questions?

Nobody ever wanted to go to war, but if a war came your way, it might as well be the right war, about the most important things in the world, and you might as well,...

PLAGIARISM, n. A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an honorable subsequence.

Knowledge for a writer is like a compass for a sailor.

She realized, when relationships failed to last, it was not because love was no longer present, but because people had stopped believing in themselves and in their partners.

Any poet, if he is to survive beyond his 25th year, must alter; he must seek new literary influences; he will have different emotions to express.

Apparently, faith in life is one thing and faith in literature is another.

Phaedra keeps saying she’s being selfish. That she hates herself for it, but she does it anyway. She can’t deny herself what she wants, even if it brings about her downfall and his.” “And have...

Walking into a bookshop is a depressing thing. It’s not the pretentious twats, browsing books as part of their desirable lifestyle. It’s not the scrubby members of staff serving at the counter: the pseudo-hippies and...

Shit, man, if you see a dog scratching at the dirt trying to dig something up, walk away real fast,” he said, then pulled a little square of paper from his pocket and swallowed whatever...

Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.

PUBLISH, n. In literary affairs, to become the fundamental element in a cone of critics.

I realize I’m far from perfect every time I step on the golf course

Besides,love is only a feeling.

He was intrigued by the power of words, not the literary words that filled the books in the library but the sharp, staccato words that went into the writing of news stories. Words that went...

My sole literary ambition is to write one good novel, then retire to my hut in the desert, assume the lotus position, compose my mind and senses, and sink into meditation, contemplating my novel

Love enters later in life through the cracks left by the first heartbreak.