As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with an irrational fear of life become publishers.

Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun bring more happiness than the daffodils.

Green leaves on a dead tree is our epitaph-green leaves, dear reader, on a dead tree.

There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall.

We may assume that we keep people waiting symbolically because we do not wish to see them and that our anxiety is due not to being late, but to having to see them at all.

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.

The true index of a man's character is the health of his wife.

There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say.

While thoughts exist, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.

All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others.

To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.

Fairy tales are another kind of Bible, for those who know how to read them.

It's not always that we need to do more but rather that we need to focus on less.

What excites me is danger! I like to do daring things. I've bungee jumped three times. The only thing I haven't tried is skydiving.

Growing up, my family wasn't very tight. We were more like a tour group with secrets.

I'm proud of myself. I like the way I'm made.

You learn from mistakes, but Shakespeare is one big non mistake isn't he? He just got everything right really.

When I make an American movie it's going to come out all over the world-it doesn't happen the same way for an Italian film or a French film.

I never weigh myself, but the brutal truth of television is that they don't employ old people or fat people.

If you hear Anarchy in the UK today your hair stands on end. It gives you the shivers.