The natural role of the twentieth-century man is anxiety.

Every one of my books had killed me a little more.

There is a no man's land between sex and love, and it alters in the night.

Harsh words live in the dungeon of the heart

We are all so guilty at the way we have allowed the world around us to become more ugly and tasteless every year that we surrender to terror and steep ourselves in it.

The only faithfulness people have is to emotions they're trying to recapture

If a person is not talented enough to be a novelist, not smart enough to be a lawyer, and his hands are too shaky to perform operations, he becomes a journalist.

Every moment of one’s existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.

The mark of mediocrity is to look for precedent.

One thing I've learned in all these years is not to make love when you really don't feel it; there's probably nothing worse you can do to yourself than that.

You don't know a woman until you've met her in court.

There is no greater impotence in all the world like knowing you are right and that the wave of the world is wrong, yet the wave crashes upon you.

Any war that requires the suspension of reason as a necessity for support is a bad war.

Writer’s block is only a failure of the ego.

Ultimately a hero is a man who would argue with the gods, and so awakens devils to contest his vision.

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

I don't think life is absurd. I think we are all here for a huge purpose. I think we shrink from the immensity of the purpose we are here for.

In 'Diary,' the motto really is: 'Where Do You Get Your Inspiration?' It coaches us to be aware of our motives and not just be a reaction to the circumstances around us.

We spoke of religion, and how much of it is just a custom preserving practical codes of health, morality and justice that are no longer necessary for group survival (like not eating animals with cloven hooves).

It wasn`t very useful preparation for the real world: turning all these graduates loose every year with the expectation that life will be fair and everyone will be treated equally.

The balance between good and evil, and the choices we make between them, are probably the single most important aspects shaping our personalities and humanity.

Not only are love and hate such closely related emotions, but it’s a lot easier to hate someone you’ve cared about than someone you never have.

I’ve always believed that a person is smart. It’s people that are stupid.

People don’t necessarily confide in one another to get something off their chest. They want something: reassurance, which is a hard gift to give convincingly.