[He] was a brilliant man. People tend to become wary of individuals like him because their brilliance reminds them of their own mediocrity. Envy is a blind man who wants to pull out your eyes.

People tend to complicate their own lives, as if living weren't already complicated enough.

Time has taught me not to lose hope, yet not to trust too much in hope either.

Remember me, even if it's only in a corner and secretly. Don't let me go.

Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.

Every book has a soul, the soul of the person who wrote it and the soul of those who read it and dream about it.

There are no second chances in life, except to feel remorse.

Never trust girls who let themselves be touched right away. But even less those who need a priest for approval.

The moment you stop to think about whether you love someone, you've already stopped loving that person forever.

Books hold no passports. There's only one true literary tradition: the human.

Paris is the only city in the world where starving to death is still considered an art.

Fiction is a house with many stately mansions, but also one in which it is wise, at least sometimes, to swing from the chandeliers.

Only in stillness the windOnly from ice the flame.When all were Nameless, the wise will tellIt was only by knowing the otherThat they came to know themselves.

Grass is food for elephants, but a cushion for lions.

Depeche Mode doesn't mean anything, nor does Eurythmics. Band names aren't supposed to mean anything. I wanted something that wasn't English, and you couldn't get more English than "Elly Jackson."

Marvin Gaye is one of my favorite revolutionaries. He spoke from his heart, his mind. That's what I want to do.

The really great writers are people like Emily Brontë who sit in a room and write out of their limited experience and unlimited imagination.

The only limitations are the ones we put on ourselves and I just don't believe in limiting myself.

And they are beginning to realize that the world they live in is a place where the right thing is often hard, sometimes dangerous, and frequently unpopular.

I'm a Yente and I have a terrible accent.

It's probably your fiercest critics - not your compatriots - who have the sharpest, most resonant insights.