728 Quotes by Paul Auster

To care about words, to have a stake in what is written, to believe in the power of books – this overwhelms the rest, and beside it one’s life becomes very small.

His mother’s name was Rose, and when he was big enough to tie his shoes and stop wetting the bed, he was going to marry her.

Our lives don’t really belong to us, you see – they belong to the world, and in spite of our efforts to make sense of it, the world is a place beyond our understanding.

I see myself as anybody, as everybody; I’m not just telling the story of my life to give the reader a picture of who I am.

Entrances do not become exits, and there is nothing to guarantee that the door you walked through a moment ago will still be there when you turn around to look for it again.

I knew from the age of 16 that I wanted to be a writer because I just didn’t think I could do anything else. So I read and read and wrote short stories and dreamed of escape.

As long as there’s one person to believe it, there’s no story that can’t be true.

This is the kind of room poets are supposed to work in, the kind of room that threatens to break your spirit and forces you into constant battle with yourself.

Dread has become fact. Innocence has turned into guilt, and hope is a word that rhymes with despair.