It is odd but agitation or contest of any kind gives a rebound to my spirits and sets me up for a time.
I can't gather around and talk about how much everybody in the room doesn't believe in God. I just don't - I don't have the energy for that, and so I... Agnostic separates me from the conduct of atheists whether or not there is strong overlap between the two categories, and at the end of the day I'd rather not be any category at all.
I'm agnostic because I went through the usual process of parents insisting you go to church, and yet they didn't. So there's me, sitting in the chairs, thinking, 'Jeez, why am I here? I'd rather be playing tennis, seriously.'
I was raised in a deeply Catholic family. There was a sense that everything we were doing was to prepare ourselves for an afterlife in heaven. In my teenage years, that became less important to me. Eventually, that turned into agnosticism, which became atheism.
I'm a pretty decent writer. It comes easy to me. I don't agonize over sentences. I write like I talk. I try to make them good books.
Although at the time I didn't realize what was happening, I was unable to make a decision that might displease those around me. For years, whatever directive I may have issued ended with the phrase, 'If it's all right with you.' If I thought I'd done anything to make someone unhappy, I'd agonize.
I am happy with my role in 'Taxiwala.' It gave me a chance to do a character that was fun. I didn't have to agonize over every scene.
The theatre always seems to be in trouble but always thriving. It's deeply comical to me that we agonize about our crap football teams and indifferent Test sides when in front of our noses is a great world success story that no one's interested in apart from those who work in it.
To me, acting is like a party. It's like a fun thing to do. You don't have to worry. You don't have to agonize about anything.
I think people sleepwalk through their lives, and for me, I wanted to embrace everything. And that meant the agonizing pain and the transcendence, and you can't have one without the other.
I still have in my memory, almost agonizing impressions of a serious illness which I had when I was about eight years old. Those about me called it scarlet fever, and its very name seemed to have a diabolical quality.
'Shun security,' I advise aspiring novelists when they complain to me that they are stuck. 'Get disoriented. Maybe your agonizing writing block isn't agonizing enough. Your enemy is comfort.'
Real joy seems to me almost as unlike security or prosperity as it is unlike agony.
The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food.
If I had a plot that was all set in advance, why would I want go through the agony of writing the novel? A novel is a kind of exploration and discovery, for me at any rate.
I always knew I was a star And now, the rest of the world seems to agree with me.
A traitor is everyone who does not agree with me.
I agree with Balzac and 19th-century writers, black and white, who say, 'I write for money.' Yes, I think everybody should be paid handsomely; I insist on it, and I pay people who work for me, or with me, handsomely.
I love argument, I love debate. I don't expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that's not their job.
I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.
