I expect that my readers have been to Europe, I expect them to have some feeling for a foreign language, I expect them to have read books - there are a lot of people like that! That's my audience.

Politicians were like talking dogs in a circus: the fact that they existed was uncommonly interesting, but no sane person would actually believe what they said

Whether you like it or not, Paris is the beating heart of Western civilisation. It's where it all began and ended.

You can't make accommodations in crucial situations and be heroic.

Wherever God has planted you, you must know how to flower - translated from a French saying

If you can live in Paris, maybe you should.

Live today, for tomorrow we die.

I have a very serious censorship office inside my head; it censors things that I could tell you that you would never forget, and I don't want to be the person to stick that in your brain.

The best Paris I know now is in my head.

Once you have your characters, they tell you what to write, you don't tell them.

One is what one has the nerve to pretend to be.

The Bible itself can be used for both good and evil. That doesn't mean it's flawed. It means that it is perfect.

Live a life that will make you look back in old age at your life and grin in satisfaction.

In 50 years, no one will care about the fiscal cliff or the Euro crisis. They'll just ask, "So the Arctic melted, and then what did you do?"

Stand-up will always come first. I've been doing it for 22 years, and nothing compares to that connection you have with the audience. It's euphoric.

But for a few phrases from his letters and an odd line or two of his verse, the poet walks gagged through his own biography.

One must desire something to be alive.

Most people hate that their mum has a Facebook page, but I love that my mum does.

Most attorneys practice law because it gives them a grand and glorious feeling. You give them a grand - and they feel glorious.

The right don't have time off to go join protest marches as a career. The left has turned that into a bought-and-paid-for, rent-a-mob type activity.

We live in a frightened time, and people self-censor all the time and are afraid of going into some subjects because they are worried about violent reactions.