Quotes from Tibor Fischer

A public role endures for the literary high-command, as sages and seers, speaking out on social and political issues.

Usually, when you make a decision in life, unless you have access to parallel universes, you can't truly judge how right that decision was.

It's easy to jeer at the thought anthills (too easy). In spite of it all, even a nullifidian like me has seen goodness, bravery, even intelligence. The really decent people I've known, no one else would have heard of; decency seems to bar you from high office and prominence. But they're there. Those who spout concern for others, the welfare 'n' solicitude fiends, are the ones who bully waiters, neglect their children and who pay their gardeners pittances.

Part of my procrastination was down to leaving things to the last moment in case of a civilization-spinning idea popping up after I'd started work. Of course, this envisaged procrastination might be hard to spot in my monumental laziness, like a fish's tears in an ocean.

The trouble with taking writing seriously, is that the more seriously you take it the harder it is to write. Possibly I take writing more seriously than any other human being that has ever lived.

Winning is not life, fighting for third place is.

He couldn't remember either the names or the addresses or the telephone numbers of two or three staggeringly attractive women he had met: their details were always just out of recall, the fingertips of his memory couldn't reach the shelf they were kept on, so he had no way of tracking down the beauties.

No amount of intelligence can save you from stupidity.

Why is erasing desire seen as so important? If the subjugation of the self is the point of the self what's the point in having a self? It's like someone handing you a leaflet which says throw this leaflet away.

Few pleasures are greater than knowing you can close your door, ignore the world and create your own.

You read a lot," said the behatted kvetch indicating the two novels he had open. He nodded, because there was no denying it and because he didn't want to put up the ante for a conversation. Books aren't life." No, they're better," he replied and flipped through the thirty-two library cards in his wallet to remove his one credit card to pay. This was twenty-first century vagrancy.

Many of us, I suppose, see our existences not as lives, but as life-holders, zarfs, waiting for the job, the person, the event to fill it.

I always consider every place worth exploring once- just in case there's a thirty foot flaming sign divulging the secret of life, that no one has told me about.

I don't know why they call it life, it's just a moment with memories.

The greatest danger of being gifted, is that you may never learn how to make an effort.

It's like training dogs. You want the dog to obey you, but you can't have real respect for a dog that always obeys you. You want a dog that occasionally goes over the wall or bites the postman without your permission; you want to be reminded that you command a subdued yet wild animal, not a crawler. A man should be strong enough to kill you with his bare hands.

Once you've been backstage at a theater, the theater is never the same for you. Once you've noticed the crack in the vase, the vase is never the same for. Once you've seen a friend do something appalling, the friendship is never the same. That does not mean you won't go to the theater, or keep the vase or the friend. You can choose.

Stay cool, and wait for opportunity.

We might not want to share our food or our money, but we do want to share our judgement. We want others to think we have more fun.But we need meeting-places of the mind. A Kilimanjaro of spirit that we've all visited so we can say of other things: it's shorter, or taller, or the same height as Kilimanjaro.

Why endure verticality when you can be horizontal?

Laziness always wins.

Almost all of us have the hankering to be famous, to be important, to be admired, to stand out, but the assumption is you have to be different or better to get that. No. The best thing is to be famous, to be cuddled by the public, but to be like everyone else.

Even those with unspendable fortunes only have one mind, one mouth, two ears, two eyes and one pleasure station. There's only so much fun you can take.

Book-writing is always much easier in other people's lives.