Art transcends war. Art is the language of God and war is the barking of men. Beethoven is bigger than war.

I'm not happy when I'm writing, but I'm more unhappy when I'm not.

A woman has to be twice as good as a man to go half as far.

Family. A snug kind of word.

The vast army of women seeking divorce are mainly after easy alimony from men they have ceased to love - surely one of the most despicable forms of barter that can exchange human hands.

Nervous hands as if the fingers were dripping from them like icicles.

I would rather regret what I have done than what I have not.

It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to.

writing is the loneliest job in the world. There's always that frustrating chasm to bridge between the concept and the writing of it. We're a harassed tribe, we writers.

Few enjoy noisy overcrowded functions. But they are a gesture of goodwill on the part of host or hostess, and also on the part of guests who submit to them.

Any writer worth the name is always getting into one thing or getting out of another thing.

Where do dreams come from?...they slink out of books, they lurk in the stacks of libraries. Out of pages turned they rise like the scent of peonies and infect the brain with their promises.

Money is to my social existence what health is to my body.

Everything is politics.

Earl Scruggs is the guy who really made that leap with using three fingers in a rotating fashion to create this fast rippling sound that had never been heard before.

My mom is like this hard-core, liberal feminist. She's a professor in Boston, and she's been teaching women's studies for 30 years and international politics.

Dealing with the old school rappers, you see a lot of humility. When you're new, nothing is wrong. Everything is tight. Because you're trying to hype the world into believing in you.

My unanticipated success as a sportscaster is a perfect example of the importance of saying yes to yourself, even when you are uncertain.

The more successful I get, the more I am reminded that in the minds of a great many people I will never be anything more than my body. No matter what I accomplish, I will be fat, first and foremost.

We can only know one thing about God - that he is what we are not. Our wretchedness alone is an image of this. The more we contemplate it, the more we contemplate him.

Yeah, it's a weird little niche, but by God, it's my niche.