“Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honor.”

“I've tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I'm afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.”

“My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.”

“For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.”

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”

“I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.”

“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”

“All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.”

“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?”

“Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”

“The game of golf would lose a great deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green.”

“Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.”

“Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.”

“If you have a success you have it for the wrong reasons. If you become popular it is always because of the worst aspects of your work.”