Antagonistic cooperation is the principle of all markets and many marriages.

Pain narrows consciousness; pleasure blurs it.

When Medusa looks in the mirror, she sees the Lady of Sorrows.

My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.

Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism, not a return to the hedonism of youth

The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path.

Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.

The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.

'Be faithful to your roots' is the liberal version of 'Stay in your ghetto.'

Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.

Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.

Growing up, I knew where the world ended. I could see it, at the horizon, where the sky touched the corn. My life was bounded and known. I *knew* the edges of the world. And then I went to college.

I am convinced that human history has not yet begun, that we find ourselves in the last period of the prehistoric.

Writers get to construct a magical world that readers can visit in thought and extend their stay with imagination.

We are small but we are manyWe are many we are smallWe were here before you roseWe will be here when you fall

Eating disorders are like a gun that's formed by genetics, loaded by a culture and family ideals, and triggered by unbearable distress.

If there is a distinctive Irish experience, it is one of division, exacerbated by the fact that division in a country so small seems perverse. But the scale doesn't matter.

Genius, like gold and precious stones, is chiefly prized because of its rarity.

There's room for everyone. There's room for pop country, for 'rock & roll' country, for stone-cold country, and everything in-between. Great music is great music.

I grow numb; I grow stiff. How shall I break up this numbness which discredits my sympathetic heart?

A goal is simply a dream with a deadline.