Conscience is the moralized form of self-absorption.

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.

Women are unhappy in their marriages because they want men to be more related than most men know how to be. And men are unhappy in their marriages because their women seem so unhappy with them.

...the play of the toughest and most lucid mind are at the same time both lavished andsquandered.

A dream that is not understood remains a mere occurrence; understood it becomes a living experience.

The people are fed up with their elected officials playing the blame game and treating their political counterparts as enemies.

She doesn’t think she’s worthy to live. But she doesn’t realize, she is life.

If vices were profitable, the virtuous man would be the sinner.

Like all real heroes, Charley had a fatal flaw. He refused to believe that he had gonorrhea, whereas the truth was that he did.

It's the same old story, all you think about is money.

All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future, which has not been given us.

I would never want to move to L.A.