How does one kill fear, I wonder? How do you shoot a specter through the heart, slash off its spectral head, take it by its spectral throat?

Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.

The air of the New World seems favorable to the art of declamation.

It is not the clear-sighted who rule the world. Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm fog.

I don't like work... but I like what is in work - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - which no other man can ever know.

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.

We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness

If you don't make mistakes, you don't make anything .

There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.

To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.

They talk of a man betraying his country, his friends, his sweetheart. There must be a moral bond first. All a man can betray is his conscience.

How can you possibly do everything you want to do in life if you start doing a bunch of things twice?

I wanted to become an atheist but I gave it up. They have no holidays.

Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.

When one door is closed, don't you know, another is open.

My mom just died. We blink and another decade passes. I don't want to reach the end of my life and regret not having given my days everything in me to make them worthwhile.

Me, I was waiting tables of 13 and married at 19. I graduated from public schools, and taught elementary school.

Even nice things don't make you happy when you're tired.

And now for something completely different...

The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.

Literature is born when something in life goes slightly adrift.