In England, life is a long process of composing oneself.

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.

All the magicians have 52 mutual friends.

It's remarkable how very many things there are that a king may not do.

I'm anti-tax, but I'm pro-carbon tax.

What's risky is living your life and never trying for anything and never doing something brave and never getting yourself scared.

The only graceful thing to do is recognize and embrace what is actually happening, rather than fight against it.

Let us fall before the majesty of our great God, acknowledging our faults, and praying that he will make us ever more conscious of them.

Colleagues will malign you if you're a moderately successful journalist.

Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.

I have a talent for happiness. I look with the eyes of a painter, and I see beauty.

People can think whatever they like. I don't desire their validation.