I wasn't convinced a shop girl would know the word 'Oedipal.

It's nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of.

Poetry has been the longest pleasure of my life.

The tragedy is not that love doesn't last. The tragedy is the love that lasts.

Americans' great and secret fear is that America may turn out to be a phenomenon rather than a civilization.

There is balance in life, but not fairness.

It is the impulse of our century, with its nearly religious belief in magnitude, to fling an institution into every void.

I think that one is constantly startled by the things that appear before you on the page when you're writing.

Sometimes, surely, truth is closer to imagination or to intelligence, to love than to fact? To be accurate is not to be right.

In thoughts one keeps a reserve of hope, in spite of everything. You cannot say good-bye in imagination. That is something you can only do in actuality.

Human beings need unhappiness at least as much as they need happiness.

Water has no mouth, but swallows many. Light has no hands, but touches many. Wind has no feet, but carries many. Darkness has no teeth, but devours many.

A new planting is like having another child, requiring patience and sacrifice and a resounding optimism for the future

I've always said fashion is like roast chicken: You don't have to think about it to know it's delicious.

If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not.

I'd like to go away for six months and learn to kiteboard and windsurf. I love pinochle, I love chess and I love windsurfing.

The crime of suicide lies rather in its disregard for the feelings of those whom we leave behind.

LOOK back on time with kindly eyes, He doubtless did his best; How softly sinks his trembling sun In human nature's west!

I think I was always a drama queen. I really, really, really loved playing pretend.

I don't know when I'm going to have time to be politically active.

Confession makes you a more trustworthy narrator.