Few enjoy noisy overcrowded functions. But they are a gesture of goodwill on the part of host or hostess, and also on the part of guests who submit to them.

I'm not happy when I'm writing, but I'm more unhappy when I'm not.

A woman has to be twice as good as a man to go half as far.

Art transcends war. Art is the language of God and war is the barking of men. Beethoven is bigger than war.

Family. A snug kind of word.

The vast army of women seeking divorce are mainly after easy alimony from men they have ceased to love - surely one of the most despicable forms of barter that can exchange human hands.

Nervous hands as if the fingers were dripping from them like icicles.

I would rather regret what I have done than what I have not.

It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to.

writing is the loneliest job in the world. There's always that frustrating chasm to bridge between the concept and the writing of it. We're a harassed tribe, we writers.

Any writer worth the name is always getting into one thing or getting out of another thing.

There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them

The obscurity of a writer is generally in proportion to his incapacity.

A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid the mistake altogether.

The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.

To be a character who feels a deep emotion, one must go into the memory's vault and mix in a sad memory from one's own life.

What you have to do is break all the rules.

Decide exactly what you want and resolve to persist, no matter what, until you achieve it.

Happiness can only be found within, by breaking attachments to external things and cultivating an attitude of acceptance.

Real friendship, love, respect, and trust are all gained without a single dollar.

In the same way that a small child cannot draw a bad picture so a child of God cannot offer a bad prayer.