I have sometimes suspected that the only thing that holds no mystery is happiness, because it is its own justification.

So plant your own gardens and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.

Don't talk unless you can improve the silence.

I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.

I cannot sleep unless I am surrounded by books.

The worst labyrinth is not that intricate form that can entrap us forever, but a single and precise straight line

The fact is that poetry is not the books in the library . . . Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book.

Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.

I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart, I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.

The original is unfaithful to the translation.

When lovers kiss on the cheeks, it is because they are searching, feeling for one another's lips. Lovers are made by a kiss.

You're playing dirty, " she whispered. "Did you want me any other way?

I had the constitution of a missionary.

A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.

I think capital punishment works great. Every killer you kill never kills again.

For TV I don't think I could have gotten a better part than Uncle Junior because of the intimacy of the character based on David Chase's brilliant writing.

Some people ask me whether I'm a 'mama's girl' or a 'papa's girl.' I'm nobody's girl. My brother clings to our parents; I'm the one shoving them out the door.

It's okay to love something bigger than yourself without fearing it. Anything worth loving is bigger than we are anyway.

Integrity in the Moment of Choice: Quality of life depends on what happens in the space between stimulus and response.

Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves.