“What is important is not just what you do - "I am writing a book"”

“The most important question you can ever ask yourself. It’s not what am I getting. It is what am I becoming.”

“Usually a feeling of disappointment follows the book, because what I hoped to write is not what I actually accomplished. However, it becomes a motivation to write the next book.”

“I'm a writer and this is what I love to do. There's no reason that just because you're a celebrity, you can't write.”

“I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for a love relationship is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don't know what will be the end. My field is the history of thought. Man is a thinking being.”

“… it's not just learning that's important. It's learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things that matters.”

“A book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.”

“I feel that by writing I am doing what is far more necessary than anything else.”

“All I want, is for you to love me. Not because of what I can do or what I look like, or because I love you - just because I am.”

“I do care about real life. It's just not as interesting as what's in my books.”