It is hard to tell truth, and hard not to.

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.

A mind possessed by unmade books.

A demon, who serves to a warlock, begins tormenting his master, if he has not enough work. Talent is the demon.

Her laugh was wonderful. It was mischief made musical.

It is good for a man to invite his ghosts into his warm interior, out of the wild night, into the firelight, out of the howling dark.

You always be calling her, she aint never answerin. You aint figured out I am the reason that she canceling

It's basically impossible for everybody's justice to prevail or everybody's happiness to triumph, so chaos takes over.

I had dreamed my life for nearly fifty years (I am about to be fifty-nine). But, you see, there are two tones in Les Mats: the echo of this condemnation and a mitigation of that severity.

They don't take eyeballs at the bank. Those who value stocks by eyeballs should go be ophthalmologists, not stock analysts. There is no cyberworld where reach trumps profits.

I had been found in a mud puddle at 4:30 in the morning.

Men, not children or servants, tempered and taught to the end; Cleansed of servile panic, slow to dread or despise, Humble because of knowledge, mighty by sacrifice.