He responded with one of those looks of pity and amusement I was by now so used to getting, the kind that implied not only was my fly undone, but that there was nothing to see even if it was.

This feat I also had no idea how to accomplish, but ignorance had never stopped me from taking action before.

no one asks poor people if they want war.

...nothing is more precious than independence and freedom...

give a woman the chance to reject something else besides me

Quoting Nguyen Du - Talent and destiny are apt to feud.

Did we salivate for sadness, or had we only learned to enjoy what we were forced to eat?

Some animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.

While it is better to be loved than hated, it is also far better to be hated than ignored.

cheered by the optimism that one sometimes had at the beginning of strenuous exercise, a kind of helium that filled our lungs and carried us along

That is what revolutionaries do. We sacrifice ourselves to save others.

I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother.

There are kisses and kisses, I am told, and this must have been quite the other sort from Millie's resonant signals of regard.

The true parents of creativity are curiosity and necessity.

What is explained can be denied but what is felt cannot be forgotten.

I'm a heart-on-the-sleeves kind of person.

If 'Pygmalion' is not good enough for your friends with its own verbal music, their talent must be altogether extraordinary.

I do trust women. I have a lot of women in my life. I have a mother. I have a woman. There's a lot of women around me. And I do trust them. And they trust me, as far as I know.

It's hard sometimes to capture magic when it comes to live records.

I can say now is that sneaking up on people is a major delight in my old age, but it always has been. A desire, even a need, to shock.

You’re not leaving me here alone,” I say. Because if he dies, I’ll never go home, not really. I’ll spend the rest of my life in this arena, trying to think my way out.