I went to Cambridge and thought I would stay there. I thought I would quietly grow tweed in a corner somewhere and become a Don or something.

You don't need a Harvard MBA to know that the bedroom and the boardroom are just two sides of the same ballgame.

You are who you are when nobody's watching.

As I say I don't want to kill myself, I just wouldn't mind dying.

Estate agents: like them or loathe them, you'd be mad not to loathe them.

The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriousity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.

People who can change and change again are so much more reliable and happier than those who can’t

Love in all eight tones and all five semitones of the word's full octave.

Wine can be a better teacher than ink, and banter is often better than books

Nothing in this world is at it seems. Except, possibly, porridge.

All the big words -virtue, justice, truth, ...- are dwarfed by the greatness of kindness

False humility is quite like the worst of both worlds: both that of Meekness and that of Conceit.

Love must be as beautiful as spring flowers and as bright as the morning sun.

Testing two vaccines against different H1N1s at the same time has never been done.

My fast is a matter between God and myself.

What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.

His dreams had always been Houdiniesque: they were the dreams of a pupa struggling in its blind cocoon, mad for a taste of light and air.

I'm good in the kitchen. I can cook seafood, collard greens, black-eyed peas.

I would like to have the superpower of being able to touch a book and then gain all the knowledge out of that book without spending hours and days reading it.

What attracts me are free and sensual curves. The curves we find in mountains, in the waves of the sea, in the body of the woman we love.

At the age of 21 I was so sensible and became a nun. I am very grateful to myself for that.