I do not gather things, I prefer to rent them rather than to possess them.

A novelist has a specific poetic license which also applies to his own life.

If we reduce social life to the smallest possible unit we will find that there is no social life in the company of one.

There must be no worse punishment to a totalitarian nation than the withdrawal of capital.

It is not sex by itself that interests me, but its particular role in American consciousness, and in my own life.

In my photographs it is apparent that there was no posing at the moment I released the shutter.

I don't fret over lost time - I can always use the situations in a novel.

The things I write are for those who are willing to accept a new relationship between the reader and the author.

The planned sit-down reception is an artificial forum where one is presented with a limited number of persons with whom he can hold a conversation.

Travel gives me the opportunity to walk through the sectors of cities where one can clearly see the passage of time.

Going around under an umbrella interferes with one's looking up at the sky.

I do not gather things, I prefer to rent them rather than to possess them.

The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.

And really the purpose of art - for me, fiction - is to alert, to indicate to stop, to say: Make certain that when you rush through you will not miss the moment which you might have had, or might still have.

The principle of art is to pause, not bypass.

Physical comfort has nothing to do with any other comfort.

As I go to sleep I remember what my father said-that one can never be sure if one will awake. The way my health is now, this is becoming more and more real.

I collect human relationships very much the way others collect fine art.

I do like to live in other people's homes. I enjoy being a guest. I am an inexpensive guest. When one lives in another's home he can enter into the psychic kingdom of that person.

Banks introduced the installment plan. The disappearance of cash and the coming of the credit card changed the shape of life in the United States.

There are many types of participation. One can observe so intensely that one becomes part of the action, but without being an active participant.

It is possible to stand around with a cocktail in one's hand and talk with everyone, which means with no one.

A trait which differentiated New York from European cities was the incredible freedom and ease in which life, including sexual life, could be carried on, on many levels.

I write for a certain sphere of readers in the United States who on average watch seven and a half hours of multichannel television per day.

I am inspired by human sexuality. The act itself is mechanical and holds little interest to me.

Gatherings and, simultaneously, loneliness are the conditions of a writer's life.

Mapplethorpe presented the body as a sexual object, separating it from the humanity of the person. He added nothing to photography as a medium. I hold his work in low regard.

I can create countries just as I can create the actions of my characters. That is why a lot of travel seems to me a waste of time.

Take a look at the books other people have in their homes.

In London, the weather would affect me negatively. I react strongly to light. If it is cloudy and raining, there are clouds and rain in my soul.

Persons who have been homeless carry within them a certain philosophy of life which makes them apprehensive about ownership.

I look back into past history, the stored experiences or products of the imagination. I look no further forward than the evening.

Homelessness is a part of our American system. There should be nothing wrong with this condition as long as the individual is not sentenced to unnecessary suffering and punishment.

Gatherings and simultaneously loneliness are the conditions of a writers life.

There is no medicine like hope no incentive so great and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.

I never thought I would be somewhat of a gay icon.

My best moment? I have a lot of good moments but the one I prefer is when I kicked the hooligan.

My opinions about human nature are shared by many psychologists, linguists, and biologists, not to mention philosophers and scholars going back centuries.

My viewers actually know about my little routine for spraying perfume. I put it on my wrists and rub them together, then I spray a little bit on my neck and three spritzes in front of me and then I shimmy through them.

If you look at issues like immigration, gay marriage, gun regulation - these are all things that probably wouldn't be a source of much discussion at all in D.C., if they weren't sources of self-perpetuation.

Dreams are what keep us growing. They are what keep us alive. To give up, is to let our dreams die.

I had some downtime with my career and... I got complacent.

In Canada, we're happy to provide a safe haven for next-door neighbors in the middle of a marital dispute. And if anyone trips while crossing the border, we're happy to set their broken bones for free.

When something really hits me, it makes me want to either jump off something really high or lie down and be buried. I want people to get hit and caught by my music.

You can't write about the past and ignore religion. It was such a fundamental, mind-shaping, driving force for pre-modern societies. I'm very interested in what religion does to us - its capacity to create love and empathy or hatred and violence.

My philosophy is really based on humility. I don't think we know enough to fix either diagnostics or therapeutics. The future of psychiatry is clinical neuroscience, based on a much deeper understanding of the brain.

It is virtually impossible to control Northern Kenya, which is populated chiefly by migrant nomads.

Skinny jeans were only good if you had skinny genes.

And whether it is equal pay, health care, Social Security, or family leave, this Congress has refused to address issues critical to hard-working American women.