I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.

The Greeks had invented democracy, built the Acropolis and called it a day.

Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you're offered the perfect opportunity to hurt someone's feelings.

A zoo is a good place to make a spectacle of yourself, as the people around you have creepier, more photogenic things to look at.

There seemed to be some correlation between devotion to God and a misguided zeal for marshmallows.

All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to fingerprints.

Remember that the most important thing is to try and love other people as much as they love you.

Everyone looks retarded once you set your mind to it.

I started writing when I was twenty, and my first book came out seventeen years later.

Like all of my friends, she's a lousy judge of character.

A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.

I inhale hope with every breath I take.

He's six-foot two, brave as a lion, strong as an ox and quick as lightning. If he was good looking, you'd say he has everything.

So - whatever happened to you?' 'Life. Life happened.

Am I trying to do good or to make myself look good?

I've been playing since I was 5, but I wouldn't say that I'm serious about the piano.

If people do not laugh it's not comedy.

We need to push our border across the Mediterranean - hoping that Libya can find a new balance as soon as possible.

It's a very different bond, siblings and friends. And I just - I wanted that huge family, just to surround me, be surrounded by.

I don't do special effects. I do characters. I do creatures.

A good friend knows all your stories. A best friend helped you write them.