Apollinaire said a poet should be 'of his time.' I say objects of the Digital Age belong in newspapers, not literature. When I read a novel, I don’t want credit cards; I want cash in ducats and gold doubloons.

All forms of madness, bizarre habits, awkwardness in society, general clumsiness, are justified in the person who creates good art.

The ‘Muse’ is not an artistic mystery, but a mathematical equation. The gift are those ideas you think of as you drift to sleep. The giver is that one you think of when you first awake.

Ô, the wine of a woman from heaven is sent,more perfect than all that a man can invent.

I will always know the glory of the beautiful and rare, as they will know security from labour and prayer. As they will hear the laughter of the children they gave life, I will know the torments of the song born under knife.

I regained my soul through literature after those times I'd lost it to wild-eyed gypsy girls on the European streets.

Who’s to say what a ‘literary life’ is? As long as you are writing often, and writing well, you don’t need to be hanging-out in libraries all the time. Nightclubs are great literary research centers. So is Ibiza!

I’ve only been to jail a few times, but in several different countries, at that. No, I've only been to jail a few times. But I still claim the ability to write a "serious" novel.

I'm not ashamed of heroic ambitions. If man and woman can only dance upon this earth for a few countable turns of the sun... let each of us be an Artemis, Odysseus, or Zeus... Aphrodite to the extent of the will of each one.