Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.

Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.

Life is rather like a tin of sardines - we're all of us looking for the key.

All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use.

History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.

A bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot.

If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.

The majority of people perform well in a crisis and when the spotlight is on them; it's on the Sunday afternoons of this life, when nobody is looking, that the spirit falters.

Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall.

I saw someone peeing in Jermym Street the other day. I thought, is this the end of civilization as we know it? Or is it simply someone peeing in Jermyn Street?

Above literature?' said the Queen. 'Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity.

Be a goal-setter, a go-getter, all the while, moving,  in humility and kindness.

Oh, it was an artful place--it must make people who have money want to spend it madly!

I turn my head so that he doesn't see my smile and secretly curse him for making me feel special.

When you can stop you don't want to, and when you want to stop, you can't...

You don't know what the pattern of flour and chicken is going to be, but you know you're going to get some good fried chicken.

I'm the devil's advocate. We have our own worshipers.

Certainly the policy is right and good politics usually follow good policy.

We are ugly but we have the music.

In this cash-rich, time-poor culture of ours, the most precious commodity we have is time...volunteering our precious time, is in this brutally self-involved world, the most truly selfless act

she braided my sister's hair with hands that smelled deep roots buried in the earth she told me the old stories how time never mattered when she died they gave me her clock