Home is, I suppose just a child's idea. A house at night, and a lamp in the house. A place to feel safe.

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing - which is never an easy thing to do.

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

One isn’t born one’s self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people’s ideas – and you have to work through it all.

Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision.

It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling.

The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.

One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.

The world is always in movement.

All the details of the life and the quirks and the friendships can be laid out for us, but the mystery of the writing will remain. No amount of documentation, however fascinating, can take us there.

I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not.

I love Toronto. I love it. I love Toronto. I love Canada. I can't wait to get back. Can't wait to have some Timbits.

I drive around the streets an inch away from weeping, ashamed of my sentimentality and possible love.

The trumpet does not more stun you by its loudness, than a whisper teases you by its provoking inaudibility.

The earth is too small a star and we too brief a visitor upon it for anything to matter more than the struggle for peace.

I knew you could find a certain relief in begging God, it had helped me, but on the other hand, God never answered directly and that was always depressing.

I'll teach you to kick me...' You don't need to teach me--I already know how!

All -isms end up in schisms.

When Rick Perry says I can do for America what I've done for Texas, pay attention. That's no idle threat.

It wasn't a healthy attitude, but it wasn't really a healthy world.

Of course, with the people you really know, no one changes that much.