I have made up my mind that I will never marry. I shall be wedded to my art.

There isn't any such thing as an ordinary life. (92)

Nobody with any real sense of humor *can* write a love story. . . . Shakespeare is the exception that proves the rule. (90-91)

My pen shall heal, not hurt.

Don't try to write anything you can't feel - it will be a failure - 'echoes nothing worth

Fear is a vile thing, and is at the bottom of almost every wrong and hatred of the world.

Satirize wickedness if you must--but pity weakness.

No one can be free who has a thousand ancestors.

Lovely thoughts came flying to meet me like birds. They weren't my thoughts. I couldn't think anything half so exquisite. They came from somewhere.

[Ilse] was suffering so keenly that she wanted to arraign the universe at the bar of her pain.

He was so lonely that he laughed at himself.

Your life is the people who fill it, " Mel says. "And nothing's good without them.

He who hunts deer must not boast to he who hunts buffalo.

When a shadow looks very beautiful, we forget to look at its owner!

In both law and politics, I think the essential battle is the meta-battle of framing the narrative.

We got on his label, and the Bizarre organization is just going up and up. So we have faith.

The rain on my chest is a baptism - I'm born again.

We are accustomed to use our eyes only with the memory of what other people before us have thought about the object we are looking at.

My God, what have we done?

America is still an eagle, and she's ready to soar again.

Every time somebody calls me out or tries to start something, it's motivation.