But big people’s illnesses are always made to sound big. The simple shutting and opening of the royal arse-hole was made to sound as if the world was coming to an end.

Morality is a matter of money. Poor people cannot afford to have morals. So they have religion.

No one has invented a condom for the pen yet. My pen is still sexy.

Your principle should be to see everything and say nothing. The world changes so rapidly that if you want to get on you cannot afford to align yourself with any person or point of view.

When the world is itself draped in the mantle of night, the mirror of the mind is like the sky in which thoughts twinkle like stars.

The last to learn of gossip are the parties concerned

Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians—or the Pakistanis.

When you have counted eighty years and more, Time and Fate will batter at your door; But if you should survive to be a hundred, Your life will be death to the very core.

I have never lost my temper. I let out my venom in my writing if I have to, but person-to-person, I have never lost my temper, never used abusive language.

I acquired long-lived parents. My mother died at 94. Father died at 90, holding a glass of whisky. I think that's the secret of longevity - to have long-lived parents. The rest is discipline.

I haven't any close friends. Friendship needs time to interact, sit down, gossip. I don't have that time.

In art as in love, instinct is enough.

We are like travelers using the cinders of a volcano to roast their eggs.

I was not 15 anymore, and choices no longer had that same clear, bright edge to them.

I couldn't hack it in Hollywood, my writing's wasn't bad enough.

I want to make wines that harmonize with food - wines that almost hug your tongue with gentleness.

O God, let me write books! Please, God, let me write books!

Take Jesus for your king, and by baptism swear allegiance to him; take him for your prophet, and hear him; take him for your priest, to make atonement for you.

The only thing you have to fear more than failure is success.

All my songs instinctively erupted from my guitar and lyrical visions followed the spirit of the music, bot image wise and rhythmical cadence wise. It remains one of life's greatest joys to this day.

Marriage does not so much bring you into confrontation with your spouse as confront you with yourself.