The earth is a fickle place for all life, not least the human project of civilization.
I don't think I've had a very interesting life, and I feel that is a great liberation. That gives me great freedom as a fiction writer. Nothing that happened holds any special tyranny over me.
I read somewhere once that in the 1960s, fiction writers were troubled by the notion that life was becoming stranger and more sensational than made-up stories could ever hope to be. Our new problem - more profound, I think - is that life no longer resembles a story. Events intersect but don't progress. People interact but don't make contact.
I love long sentences. My big heroes of fiction writing are Henry James and Proust - people who recognise that life doesn't consist of declarative statements, but rather modifications, qualifications and feelings.
I think that people have expectations of themselves and other people that are based on these fictions that are presented to them as the way human life and relationships could be, in some sort of weird, ideal world, but they never are. So you're constantly being shown this garbage and you can't get there.
I am not a tax fiddler. I am not any kind of tax fiddler, never have been in my life.
His style has the desperate jauntiness of an orchestra fiddling away for dear life on a sinking ship.
I had some problems with fidelity in my life but pretty much got along with everybody.
To many forms of life of our northern lands, winter means a long sleep; to others, it means what it means to many fortunate human beings - travels in warm climes. To still others, who again have their human prototypes, it means a struggle, more or less fierce, to keep soul and body together; while to many insect forms, it means death.
I feel fiery in my life. I feel fiery in my art.
In the early part of my life I carried the flame for fiery women: perky women who were not dumb.
In junior high school, I was an object of pure ridicule for my dress, withdrawal, and asocial manner. Dozens of times, I saw individuals laugh and smile more in ten to fifteen minutes than I did in all my life up to then.
You get into your late fifties, people start falling like flies all around you. I don't take life for granted any more. I'm really glad to be here.
The heyday of woman's life is the shady side of fifty.
I have so many things that I want to do with my life. I just don't see myself being a fighter forever. Boxing is my love and passion. It also opens up and sets up other things in my life as well.
I've always been a fighter and I've always fought through things my whole life.
My whole life, I wanted to be a fighter pilot; it's what I wanted to do. I set up all of my classes for it, but I got lazy my senior year in high school and didn't get my paperwork in.
I've been in the fight business my whole life. I know fighters.
I tell my sons all the time, 'The most important thing in your life is fitness,' but a lot of fighters go overboard.
In youth, we get plenty of exercise through games and running around, but as middle life approaches, we settle down, literally and figuratively.
