I was never a cardholder. But I was leftist in the sense that I voted communist.

Morality is a matter of money. Poor people cannot afford to have morals. So they have religion.

No one has invented a condom for the pen yet. My pen is still sexy.

Your principle should be to see everything and say nothing. The world changes so rapidly that if you want to get on you cannot afford to align yourself with any person or point of view.

When the world is itself draped in the mantle of night, the mirror of the mind is like the sky in which thoughts twinkle like stars.

The last to learn of gossip are the parties concerned

Freedom is for the educated people who fought for it. We were slaves of the English, now we will be slaves of the educated Indians—or the Pakistanis.

When you have counted eighty years and more, Time and Fate will batter at your door; But if you should survive to be a hundred, Your life will be death to the very core.

But big people’s illnesses are always made to sound big. The simple shutting and opening of the royal arse-hole was made to sound as if the world was coming to an end.

I have never lost my temper. I let out my venom in my writing if I have to, but person-to-person, I have never lost my temper, never used abusive language.

I acquired long-lived parents. My mother died at 94. Father died at 90, holding a glass of whisky. I think that's the secret of longevity - to have long-lived parents. The rest is discipline.

Another lover hits the universe. The circle is broken. But with death comes rebirth. And like all lovers and sad people, I am a poet.

Don't waste your time hating a failure. Failure is a greater teacher than success. Listen, learn, go on.

Imagination is but another name for super intelligence.

How We Respond to Our Mistakes Has a Profound Effect on the People in Our Lives

Cultivate simplicity or rather should I say banish elaborateness, for simplicity springs spontaneous from the heart.

I've never set out consciously to write American music. I don't know what that would be unless the obvious Appalachian folk references.

It is possible to experience an awakening in this life through realising just how precious each moment, each mental process, and each breath truly is.

I have the happiness of a passing moment, and what more can mortal ask?

Life is easy greediness adds complexity

I understand that it's incredibly difficult to watch what's happening on the news every day and not become inured to it. I've fallen victim to that myself, wanting to look away.