Mark Helprin

I have been fighting over commas all my life.

— Mark Helprin

In daily life language is important, if not in itself, then as a symptom.

— Mark Helprin

“Whatever is, is, and whatever is not, is not”

— Mark Helprin

The treasures of the earth were movement, courage, laughter and love.

— Mark Helprin

I don't aspire at present to be king of the hill in American literature.

— Mark Helprin

If it wasn't for music, I would think that love is mortal.

— Mark Helprin

“Nothing is born as strong as it can become.”

— Mark Helprin

“What is apparent is not always what is true.”

— Mark Helprin

“Anticipation is the heart of wisdom. If you are going to cross a desert, you anticipate that you will be thirsty, and…

— Mark Helprin

“I like the race, rather than the winning. Do you really? Yes, I've imagined great victories, and I've imagined great races. The…

— Mark Helprin

The horse could not do without Manhattan. It drew him like a magnet, like a vacuum, like oats, or a mare, or…

— Mark Helprin

“It is said that marriage is a long war between ancient families trapped in close proximity by lust.”

— Mark Helprin

“How far do you have to go before you forgive yourself for how you were born?”

— Mark Helprin

“A cat is an excuse for a lonely woman to talk to herself. That's what a cat is.”

— Mark Helprin

“I wanted the music to be full, to surround us, to lift us like the swell, so I rented a bloody orchestra.…

— Mark Helprin

“Give me a night by the fire, with a book in my hand, not that flickering rectangular son of a bitch that…

— Mark Helprin

What I really like to do is to sit quietly and write. All that other stuff is a problem. Publication to reception…

— Mark Helprin

In an interview, I lose control even of what I am, for it is the interviewer who edits me, finally, into what…

— Mark Helprin

In American military cemeteries all over the world, seemingly endless rows of whitened grave markers stand largely unvisited and in silence. The…

— Mark Helprin

“Music was a chain forged half of silences and half of sound, love was nothing without longing and loss, and were time…

— Mark Helprin

“He had known in times of the greatest misery or danger that his dreams of home, in which all things seemed beautiful,…

— Mark Helprin

Perhaps he was a fool, but he thought that if a work were truly great you would only have to read it…

— Mark Helprin

I have to confess that I have so rarely experienced triumph that I cannot claim to know it well enough to judge,…

— Mark Helprin

“The classic business story is much like the classic human story. There is rise and fall; the overcoming of great odds, the…

— Mark Helprin

If you know anything about Islamic civilization, or about the contemporary Middle East, about the sociology and the anthropology of the people…

— Mark Helprin

He knew very well that love could be like the most beautiful singing, that it could make death inconsequential, that it existed…

— Mark Helprin

My father was famous for his photographic memory. He was in the OSS. They trained him to be captured on purpose and…

— Mark Helprin

“She could hear in the traffic a white sound that threw veils across the present and allowed her to hold the scene…

— Mark Helprin

“In the same way that certain sections of the city were mortal battlegrounds, some parts of the calendar were always more warlike…

— Mark Helprin

“Truth is not anchored to the ground by driven piles. It can float and take to the air; it is light and…

— Mark Helprin

All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come…

— Mark Helprin

“As he passed people rushing by the scores of thousands on the streets, he saw the glory of their faces. He saw…

— Mark Helprin

“All you need do is refrain from smoking, drinking and the use of drugs. Eat only wholesome,low-fat foods, with the emphasis on…

— Mark Helprin

“Shall I show you the half-dozen other rooms in this hospital where these scenes are repeated? And what of the other hospitals?…

— Mark Helprin

“Every city has its gates, which need not be of stone. Nor need soldiers be upon them or watchers before them. At…

— Mark Helprin

“Beverly had thought how strange and wonderful it would be if the earth were hurled far from its orbit, into the cold…

— Mark Helprin

“Souls, like rays of light, exist in perfect, parallel equality, always. But for when infinitely short a time they pass through the…

— Mark Helprin

“The child was left alone to die in the hallway. Here, in the dawn, was mortality itself. In the city were places…

— Mark Helprin

“I see no justice in that plan." "Who said," lashed out Isaac Penn, "that you, a man, can always perceive justice? Who…

— Mark Helprin

“I work with a great deal of discipline, although I usually take on more than I can handle and often have to…

— Mark Helprin