JERZY KOSINSKI

There must be no worse punishment to a totalitarian nation than the withdrawal of capital.

Gatherings and, simultaneously, loneliness are the conditions of a writer's life.

A novelist has a specific poetic license which also applies to his own life.

Mapplethorpe presented the body as a sexual object, separating it from the humanity of the person. He added nothing to photography as a medium. I hold his work in low regard.

Physical comfort has nothing to do with any other comfort.

The planned sit-down reception is an artificial forum where one is presented with a limited number of persons with whom he can hold a conversation.

I don't fret over lost time - I can always use the situations in a novel.

Travel gives me the opportunity to walk through the sectors of cities where one can clearly see the passage of time.

I do not gather things, I prefer to rent them rather than to possess them.

And really the purpose of art - for me, fiction - is to alert, to indicate to stop, to say: Make certain that when you rush through you will not miss the moment which you might have had, or might still have.

The principle of art is to pause, not bypass.

Take a look at the books other people have in their homes.

The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke.

I write for a certain sphere of readers in the United States who on average watch seven and a half hours of multichannel television per day.

I collect human relationships very much the way others collect fine art.

The things I write are for those who are willing to accept a new relationship between the reader and the author.

I do like to live in other people's homes. I enjoy being a guest. I am an inexpensive guest. When one lives in another's home he can enter into the psychic kingdom of that person.

I can create countries just as I can create the actions of my characters. That is why a lot of travel seems to me a waste of time.

A trait which differentiated New York from European cities was the incredible freedom and ease in which life, including sexual life, could be carried on, on many levels.

If we reduce social life to the smallest possible unit we will find that there is no social life in the company of one.

I look back into past history, the stored experiences or products of the imagination. I look no further forward than the evening.

In London, the weather would affect me negatively. I react strongly to light. If it is cloudy and raining, there are clouds and rain in my soul.

Banks introduced the installment plan. The disappearance of cash and the coming of the credit card changed the shape of life in the United States.

Persons who have been homeless carry within them a certain philosophy of life which makes them apprehensive about ownership.

I am inspired by human sexuality. The act itself is mechanical and holds little interest to me.