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

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.

But, after all, we are a young nation, and vanity is a fault of youth.

Saddam Hussein has been tenacious in his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and, unless he is removed from power, he will eventually harm our nation and our allies. Every moment we delay allows him to grow stronger.

As a nation we should commit ourselves not only to the fight against terrorism, but to economic justice, defeat of the AIDS epidemic and vestiges of discriminatory policies of all kinds.

Once to every person and nation come the moment to decide. In the conflict of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.

We are a communicating nation which needs access to space, access to the seas.

While I recognize the great value and importance of prescription drugs and strongly support a continued U.S. focus on pharmaceutical research and development, our nation's seniors cannot be asked to subsidize the drug costs of other wealthy industrialized nations any longer.

Yesterday in this country we had people die of hunger and malnutrition. In some parts of this country, the infant mortality rate rivals that of sub-Saharan Africa. We have a public education system that ranks below that of almost any other Western nation.

What the F.D.I.C. does is to put the full faith and credit of the United States government behind every savings account in the nation, up to a limit that has changed over the years and stands now at $100,000.

This nation was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the principle - among others - that honest men may honestly disagree; that if they all say what they think, a majority of the people will be able to distinguish truth from error.

It affords me sincere pleasure to be able to apprise you of the entire removal of the Cherokee Nation of Indians to their new homes west of the Mississippi.

Our brave soldiers and support personnel are engaged in a battle as important as any the United States has ever before waged, for the success of democracy in Iraq is a crucial test of the ideals this Nation was founded upon.

Our nation is built on the bedrock principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

How strange it is that murder has the sanction of law in one and only one of the human relationships, and that is the most important of all, that of nation to nation.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

Faith crosses every border and touches every heart in every nation.