And it's time people told the truth about beautiful women. They do not shimmer down staircases. They do not descend, as was once supposed, from on high, attached to nothing other than wings.

You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

Time is how you spend your love.

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.

Don't confuse honours with achievement.

Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.

an English girl might well believethat time is how you spend your love.

Attack and adversity contribute to national cohesion in a way that success and affluence do not

To rule one's anger is well to prevent it is better.

The time has come to challenge our obsession with doing everything more quickly.

Some truths are seen better through tears.

They are slaves who fear to speak, for the fallen and the weak.

It is our very fear of the future that distorts the now that could lead to a different future if we dared to be whole in the present.

God's favour is happiness.

Enthusiasm is followed by disappointment and even depression, and then by renewed enthusiasm.

I'd like to see a little more action on the energy side of things. I've been pushing for some kind of a carbon tax for years, and it seems to me we've had lots of opportunities to do it.