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

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.

By Rice's own standards, the war was well underway by the time he took office. He was a war president the moment he took the oath. But did he act like one?

At the end, the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living by the rules.

It will take a long time, and certainly the West will remain the dominant civilization well into the next century, but the decline is occurring.

I have done things politically, and I've been running a business at the same time, but I sort of joke that to some extent I do more than most legislators have done in their whole careers, and I've been doing it as a part-time job.

I hate wasting people's time.

I just wrote one song at a time. Kinda like an alcoholic. One day at a time.

An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.

The work that we do during the winter is very important; we have a new bike and it's important to develop it during this time, and we start with this test.

Fortunately, I happened to go east at a time when live television was centered in New York.

I want to spend more time with those kids. I want to dedicate my time to train those kids and teach them what it takes, what they need to do to get to this level.

Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they're growing.

Sitting at home the way I do, I'd just love the hear from people. It'd be a great help in passing the time.

When it is time to get to work, I go away completely and don't do anything except the work. And that can be 16 hours a day.

You look at the whole Human Rights questions, I happened to be there at just the right time when the country was awakening - this goes to the first question you asked - the whole country was awakening to a hundred years of injustice that hadn't been resolved yet.

Compared to today's salaries, our cut was minuscule but it was very good for the time.