I can't tell you any more than any other writer can tell you why they write, and I don't know what my influences are.
The heart, like the stomach, wants a varied diet.
Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.
Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.
The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.
Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.
I will cover you with love when next I see you, with caresses, with ecstasy. I want to gorge you with all the joys of the flesh, so that you faint and die. I want you to be amazed by me, and to confess to yourself that you had never even dreamed of such transports. . . . When you are old, I want you to recall those few hours, I want your dry bones to quiver with joy when you think of them.
She always says she dislikes the abnormal, it is so obvious. She says the normal is so much more simply complicated and interesting.
I think that people still naturally want to be part of a team and participate in the success and achievement of a group effort. So we tend to be enthusiastic and productive - and even loyal. I believe that there are very few people who purposefully try to undermine the efforts of their organization. When people do act against the objectives of a change initiative, it's often because they genuinely believe it's not the right thing for the company to do. You could argue that it's a form of misguided loyalty.
Biologically speaking, if something bites you it's more likely to be female.
The right to buy weapons is the right to be free.