I have an instinct for survival, for self-preservation.

A pier is a disappointed bridge; yet stare at it for long enough and you can dream it to the other side of the Channel.

Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.

The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.

The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly.

The land of embarrassment and breakfast.

When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.

History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.

What is the easiest, the most comfortable thing for a writer to do? To congratulate the society in which he lives: to admire its biceps, applaud its progress, tease it endearingly about its follies.

Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still.

The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of life.

Inking is meditation in liquid form...

A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.

Whenever we give up, leave behind, and forget too much, there is always the danger that the things we have neglected will return with added force

I gravitate toward the law, I think, certainly more times than not, because it's our best mechanism for legislating human behavior, and morality, and ethics.

The world is awful but also the world is beautiful. Human beings are awful, but ultimately human beings are tremendous.

I don't how I can describe the quality that is only found in art (be it music, literature, painting, or whatever), this quality, it's just there, and it endures.

The devil comes to bring a fate you couldn't imagine in your wildest dream.

What you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.

I therefore think that I was right in trying from the outset of the Olympic revival to rekindle a religious awareness.

So may I, blind fortune leading me, Miss that which one unworthier may attain, And die with grieving.