Coming out, all the way out, is offered more and more as the political solution to our oppression. |
Every artist seems to me to have the job of bearing witness to the world we live in. To some extent I think of all of us as artists, because we have voices and we are each of us unique. |
Human beings tolerate what they understand they have to tolerate. |
I believe only in art and failure. |
I didn't want to be a boy, ever, but I was outraged that his height and intelligence were graces for him and gaucheries for me |
I didn't want to be a boy, ever, but I was outraged that his height and intelligence were graces for him and gaucheries for me |
I had always said to myself that forty was the cut off point of my apprenticeship which may for some people sound like a very long one, but the novel as art is a middle-aged art. |
I had never been as resigned to ready-made ideas as I was to ready-made clothes, perhaps because although I couldn't sew, I could think. |
I was very frightened when I turned forty. I suddenly thought I ought to wake up and be speaking with the voice of God. |
I'm a non-believer. I don't believe in the existence of a God. I don't believe in the Christian dogma. I find it horrifyingly silly. The intolerance that flows from organized religion is the most dangerous thing on the planet. |
Love is the terrible secret people are suspected of unless they're married, then one always suspects they don't. |
Morality is a test of our conformity rather than our integrity. |
Morality, like language, is an invented structure for conserving and communicating order. And morality is learned, like language, by mimicking and remembering. |
My private measure of success is daily. If this were to be the last day of my life would I be content with it? To live in a harmonious balance of commitments and pleasures is what I strive for. |
My private measure of success is daily. If this were to be the last day of my life would I be content with it? To live in a harmonious balance of commitments and pleasures is what I strive for. |