For in the long run, either through a lie, or through truth, people were bound to give themselves away.

A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.

An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.

I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness - to save oneself trouble.

It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.

Very few of us are what we seem.

Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more.

Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong.

Fear is incomplete knowledge.

Books are a habit-forming drug.

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

The world existed for a very long time before this particular set of seven billion billion atoms came along and it will go right on after they're scattered up, down and sideways.

If you're afraid of butter, use cream.

Life may dawdle along in minutes but don't be deceived, for it will sprint by in years before you even notice.

I'm a feminist, yes! Very strongly.

You're saying the gods don't have free will." "The power to make mistakes," Penny said. "Only we have that. Mortals

America is not better off than it was $1.8 trillion dollars ago.

I strain to hear, but my old ears, for all their obscene hugeness, pick up nothing but snippets.

I think there is something bigger in store for me.

Fictions of law must be consistent with justice.