In the game of love, the losers are more celebrated than the winners.

Pain narrows consciousness; pleasure blurs it.

When Medusa looks in the mirror, she sees the Lady of Sorrows.

My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.

Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism, not a return to the hedonism of youth

The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path.

Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.

The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.

'Be faithful to your roots' is the liberal version of 'Stay in your ghetto.'

Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.

Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.

Racism, Dr. Sam. I worry for my kids about racism. Racism doesn't appear to take holidays or time off. What can I do about this stuff?

Poetry should be vital--either stirring our blood by its divine movements or snatching our breath by its divine perfection. To do both is supreme glory, to do either is enduring fame.

Climate deniers are less immoral than Holocaust deniers, although they are undoubtedly more dangerous.

A democracy without faith is just a machine without power. Nothing can make it function except faith in itself, in the ordinary man and woman.

Then India, everyone has his own idea of India.

Working under the Soviet system made you very paranoid - people were afraid of everything - and this paranoia is still in people's minds.

Man will believe anything, as long as it's not in the bible.

Beauty being the best of all we know sums up the unsearchable and secret aims of nature.

... to adapt one's outlook to another person's salvation is the surest and quickest way of losing him.

He’s my whole world.” “Don’t ever say that about anyone again. Not even me.