The laurels of an orator who is not a master of literary art wither quickly

A literary influence is never just a literary influence. It’s also an influence in the way you see everything – in the way you feel your life.

In literature, you can live a thousand lives

You never push a noun against a verb without trying to blow up something.

Nothing leads so straight to futility as literary ambitions without systematic knowledge.

My literary background was basically in poetry, but bad poetry, since only through bad poetry can you get to good poetry.

You can find things in the traditional religions which are very benign and decent and wonderful and so on, but I mean, the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon. The God of the Bible – not only did He order His chosen people to carry out literal genocide – I mean, wipe out every Amalekite to the last man, woman, child, and, you know, donkey and so on, because hundreds of years ago they got in your way when you were trying to cross the desert – not only did He do things like that, but, after all, the God of the Bible was ready to destroy every living creature on earth because some humans irritated Him. That’s the story of Noah. I mean, that’s beyond genocide – you don’t know how to describe this creature. Somebody offended Him, and He was going to destroy every living being on earth? And then He was talked into allowing two of each species to stay alive – that’s supposed to be gentle and wonderful.

The Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon.