All I wanted to do was write – at the time, poems, and prose, too. I guess my ambition was simply to make money however I could to keep myself going in some modest way, and I didnt need much, I was unmarried at the time, no children. – Paul Auster

We construct a narrative for ourselves, and thats the thread that we follow from one day to the next. People who disintegrate as personalities are the ones who lose that thread. – Paul Auster
I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasnt that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed some breathing room. Id already been translating French poetry, Id been to Paris once before and liked it very much, and so I just went. – Paul Auster
Money is not a motivating factor. Money doesnt thrill me or make me play better because there are benefits to being wealthy. Im just happy with a ball at my feet. My motivation comes from playing the game I love. If I wasnt paid to be a professional footballer I would willingly play for nothing. – Lionel Messi
…existence has become an unreasoning, wild dance around the golden calf, a mad worship of God Mammon. In that dance and in that worship man has sacrificed all his finer qualities of the heart and soul — kindness and justice, honor and manhood, compassion and sympathy with his fellowman. – Alexander Berkman, What Is Communist Anarchism?
