If one were to include one-tenth of the remarkable people one knows, in one's fiction, no one would accept it. Real life remains one's private menagerie.

To think of losing is to lose already.

It is best as one grows older to strip oneself of possessions, to shed oneself downward like a tree, to be almost wholly earth before one dies.

... possessiveness cannot accept; it cannot even strike a fair bargain; it has to confer.

The fatal flaw of gravity; when you are down, everything falls down on you.

Spring is strictly sentimental, self-regarding; but I burn more careless in the autumn bonfire.

Inflation is the senility of democracies.

cooking is the most succulent of human pleasures.

One cannot overestimate the power of a good rancorous hatred on the part of the stupid. The stupid have so much more industry and energy to expend on hating. They build it up like coral insects.

Truth has beauty, power, and necessity.

Idleness is righteous if it is comfortable. Uncomfortable idleness is sin & sinful waste.

Every moment counts.

We feel a lot of pressure about looking silly or appearing weak, whatever that means, or being a failure. You have to keep in your head: what's the worst that can happen?

Our achievements are generally limited only by the beliefs we impose on ourselves.

You are an artist. The canvas is your life. Make something worth staring at.

I know what I did to you was so wrong, but at the time it also felt so necessary to my survival. I don't know if those two things can both be true, but that's how it was.

New York is very career-orientated and it's hard to take time off here, but that is great for building a business.

To my astonishment, when Wolf Hall came out, people asked if I made it up - [Thomas More] burning of heretics. It was well documented. And he was proud of it! The Brits love lost causes.

If fans are going to turn on me because of this, they weren't my fans anyway. I couldn't betray a whole 25 years of record making and not do this. I had to.

I began to speak well at a very advanced age - 15, 16, 17 years old. It was psychological: the trauma of war, my family and growing up on my own. I was more or less a street kid.

I have a lot of advantages: I'm not addicted to horrifying pills. I also have surrounded myself with far more caring and upright individuals. And I wasn't abused as a child, so I'm doing okay!