If misery loves company, then triumph demands an audience.

After a goalless first half, the score at half time is 0-0.

And now we have the formalities over, we'll have the National Anthems.

The silent majority distrusts people who believe in causes.

The world's made up of individuals who don't want to be heroes.

When you're a writer you no longer see things with the freshness of the normal person. There are always two figures that work inside you.

As always on this boulevard, the faces were young, coming annually in an endless migration from every country, every continent, to alight here once in the long journey of their lives.

There comes a point in many people's lives when they can no longer play the role they have chosen for themselves. When that happens, we are like actors finding that someone has changed the play.

I've made a dog's breakfast of English history, geography, 'King Lear,' and the English language in general.

I don't read reviews if I know in advance they're negative, because I can't have my confidence undermined when I'm writing.

I really don't think of my work in terms of a genre. I think of it in terms of what I want to say, what I think is cool, and what I'm good at.

I'm not afraid of getting into a subject I don't know much about.

The reason I wrote 'You Suck' was that I so enjoyed spending time with Tommy and Jody.

When I teach seminars, I tell people, 'Your stuff has to look like something that's out there, because otherwise nobody will take a chance on you.'

As much as I encourage communication with my readers, I don't want reviews from them, simply because I don't need to be hamstrung in the middle of working on something.

For me, 'Lamb' started out as a further exploration of the phenomenon of faith and the responsibility of a messiah that I touched on in 'Coyote Blue' and 'Island of the Sequined Love Nun,' but it ended up being an exploration of the true meaning of sacrifice, loyalty, and friendship.

From Dickens's cockneys to Salinger's phonies, from Kerouac's beatniks to Cheech and Chong's freaks, and on to hip hop's homies, dialect has always been used as a way for generations to distinguish themselves.

I just finished a novel called 'Exult,' by Joe Quirk, last night. It's about hang gliding. I liked his first book, too, 'The Ultimate Rush.' I now know that I never, ever, ever want to go hang gliding, so that's good.

Like most people, I woke up one day to find that everyone I knew was taking antidepressants, and since I wasn't, I figured that I must be the cause of their depression.

One thing that's really delightful is my books tend to attract people who are funny, so I get the benefit of people writing me with things that crack me up.