Eat in the dark the bargain that you purchased in the dusk.

A reputation for a thousand years may depend upon the conduct of a single moment.

One learns to itch where one can scratch.

Do not adjust your sandals while passing through a melon-field, nor yet arrange your hat beneath an orange-tree.

The province of philosophy is not so much to prevent calamities befalling as to demonstrate that they are blessings when they have taken place.

One may ride upon a tiger's back but it is fatal to dismount.

He who thinks he is raising a mound may only in Reality be digging a pit.

When struck by a thunderbolt it is unnecessary to consult the Book of Dates as to the precise meaning of the omen.

Although there exist many thousand subjects for elegant conversation, there are persons who cannot meet a cripple without talking about feet.

The wise duck keeps his mouth shut when he smells frogs.

He who has failed three times sets up as an instructor.

Although I had committed just about every sort of assault imaginable on people and even the odd one or two against the police, I still had and still do have respect for the old school policeman.

A house takes on the character of its inhabitants

I want Maggie Gyllenhaal. I don't know why. I don't think she necessarily looks like me or acts like me, I just think she's a cool actress and she could play me, so there you go.

Had we not pursued the hydrogen bomb, there is a very real threat that we would now all be speaking Russian. I have no regrets.

Somehow we've even developed the notion that a woman who seeks to meet her husband's needs is subservient (but a husband who fails to meet his wife's needs is a pig.)

Women who have strong identities, who know themselves, really inspire me.

And did I pass?" The face of the old woman on my right was unreadable in the gathering dusk. On my left the younger woman said, "You don't pass or fail at being a person, dear.

It's a funny thing, by the way, how people who love free markets are also quite sure that they know that investors are being irrational.

Sometimes the dead are more alive than the living. And they can kill the living.

Several children present me with scraps of paper for autographs: obviously don't know who I am and don't care. I sign "Jackie Collins" and they go away quite content.