Of all the unexpected things in contemporary literature, this is among the oddest: that kids have an inordinate appetite for very long, very tricky, very strange books about places that don’t exist.

1) Wir haben lang genug geliebt…2) Wir Wollen endlich hassen!3) Wir haben lang genug gehasst4) Wir wollen endlich lieben!1) Yeterince sevdik.2) Artık nefret etmek istiyoruz.3) Yeterince nefret ettik.4) Artık sevmek istiyoruz.

Aşk; hayatın tümü demek değildir.

If the word doesn’t exist, invent it; but first be sure it doesn’t exist.

Re-vision–the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction–is for women more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival....

I am drawn mostly, insistently to the human voice. How powerful and necessary the solo voice, the experience of being someone, something else for a little while. This is and will remain literature’s killer app,...

When the Washington Post telephoned me at home on Valentine’s Day 1989 to ask my opinion about the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwah, I felt at once that here was something that completely committed me. It was,...

Cosmos is God, who whispered the syllable of life.

There is something perfect to be found in the imperfect: the law keeps balance through the juxtaposition of beauty, which gains perfection through nurtured imperfection.

Gore Vidal, for instance, once languidly told me that one should never miss a chance either to have sex or to appear on television. My efforts to live up to this maxim have mainly resulted...

Will the day tell its secret Before it disappears, Becomes timeless night.

Good is not always good.

He tries to find the exit from himself but there is no door.

If what we think of ourselves were true, the planet would overflow with geniuses.

His Highness was always confident in his statements, especially about what he viewed for the first time.

Infinity is the end. End without infinity is but a new beginning.

Unborn eternity does not die; existence is dying and falls asleep in the eternity beyond existence.

Human beings have their great chance in the novel.

He believes that if talent is demanded of a literary publisher or a writer, it must also be demanded of a reader. Because we mustn’t deceive ourselves: on the journey of reading we often travel...

I am constantly torn between the will to be seen and still hidden so god damn well, a contradiction I never figured out.

It is natural that the press will manufacture more importance about the religious significance than is our intent. We are not going to reach out to one group at the expense of another, but embrace...

Little mouse,” a voice said through the keyhole. “Don’t you know the more you wriggle, the greater the cat’s delight?

It’s my contention that each book creates its own structure and its own length. I’ve written three or four slim books. It may be that the next novel is a big one, but I don’t...

Raflara doğru ilerledi Stoddart Lectures kitabın birinci cildi ile geri döndü. “Görüyor musunuz?” diye bağırdı muzaffer bir edayla, “İşte hakiki bir kitap. Ne kadar yanılmışım . Bu adam tam bir Belasco!1 Bu büyük bir zafer....

A big lemoncolored cat watched him from the top of a woodstove. He turned his head to see it better and it elongated itself like hot taffy down the side of the stove and vanished...

[T]he imagination, like certain wild animals, will not breed in captivity.

Bir tek tutkum var; Bunca acılar çeken ve mutluluğa hakkı olan insanlık adına duyduğum aydınlık tutkusu. Coşkulu protestom, yüreğimden kopan çığlıktan başka bir şey değildir. Beni ağır ceza mahkemesi önüne çıkarmayı göze alsınlar ve herkesin...

Harold Bloom weeps for me.

Any man living in complete luxury and security who chooses to write a play or a novel which causes a flutter and exchange of compliments in Chelsea and Chiswick and a faint thrill in Streatham...

Oh! Do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.

InsomniaI wonderIf those talks matterFew done in the clarity of dayOr the manyDone at 3 a.m. in the morning

Literature wasn’t intended to be about perfect people, it was about flaws, very real and very deep human flaws.

Call them from their houses, and teach them to dream.

My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure.

Blow Ye Trumpet.” Them Negroes was far away from the doings on the plaza where the Old Man was to hang, way out from it. But they sang it loud and clear….Blow ye trumpet blowBlow...

I don’t hold with shamans, witch doctors, or psychiatrists. Shakespeare, Tolstoy, or even Dickens, understood more about the human condition than ever occurred to any of you. You overrated bunch of charlatans deal with the...

I would never attempt to dissuade anyone from reading a book. But please, if you’re reading something that’s killing you, put it down and read something else, just as you would reach for the remote...

There is nothing political about American literature.

My own mother, who’s always dazzled by my faculty and answering questions in the literature a category on Jeopardy whenever we watch it together, keeps urging me to try to get on the show to...

Kucaklarındaki kedileri okşaya okşaya balkonlu ve teraslı evlere doğru yürüdüler. Esrar ve ekmek paralarını zavallı tekirlerin sırtından kazanıyorlardı.

There is an incompatibility between literary creation and political activity.

I was beginning to understand something I couldn’t articulate. It was a jazzy feeling in my chest, a fluttering, a kind of buzzing in my brain. Warmth. Life. The circulation of blood. Sanguinity. I don’t...

The bullet that has hit us Muslims today left the gun centuries ago when we let the clergy decide that knowledge and education were not important.

The only way that you can identify and then fulfill your life’s purpose is for you to love yourself, charge up your life and serve the world.

You should never read just for “enjoyment.” Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends’ insane behavior, or better yet, your own. Pick “hard books.” Ones you have to concentrate...

He thought of trying to explain something he had recently noticed about himself: that if anyone insulted him, or one of his friends, he didn’t really mind–or not much, anyway. Whereas if anyone insulted a...

Literature is a microscope; it shows us the unseen!

The world has become sad because a puppet was once melancholy. The nihilist, that strange martyr who has no faith, who goes to the stake without enthusiasm, and dies for what he does not believe...

My words, my writing, my actions—these have never been for myself alone, either directly or indirectly. There is no such thing as an artist who creates art only for himself. That is masturbation.

I’m not ashamed of heroic ambitions. If man and woman can only dance upon this earth for a few countable turns of the sun… let each of us be an Artemis, Odysseus, or Zeus… Aphrodite...