“I can never say 'why' about anything I do. I suppose I can say 'how' a...” — Paul Auster Quote

“I can never say 'why' about anything I do. I suppose I can say 'how' and 'when' and 'what.' But 'why' is impenetrable to me.”

“When I write, the story is always uppermost in my mind, and I feel that everything must be sacrificed to it. All elegant passages, all the curious details, all the so-called beautiful writing - if they are not truly relevant to what I am trying to say, then they have to go.”

“I think I hate cynicism more than anything else. It's the curse of our age, and I want to avoid it at all costs.”

“You say a line and you wait for them to laugh, then you say another line and you wait... It felt weird to me. But it's interesting and the energy is almost like theatre, I suppose, with all the people there.”

“I'm not sure there are a lot of things I'd want a manager for. I suppose I feel that at least the decisions I make are coming from me, and I'm not put into a situation that I wouldn't want to be in.”

“I suppose you can say I became an odd-job man.”