It is important not to trust people too much.

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing - which is never an easy thing to do.

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

One isn’t born one’s self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people’s ideas – and you have to work through it all.

Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision.

It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling.

The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.

Home is, I suppose just a child's idea. A house at night, and a lamp in the house. A place to feel safe.

One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.

The world is always in movement.

All the details of the life and the quirks and the friendships can be laid out for us, but the mystery of the writing will remain. No amount of documentation, however fascinating, can take us there.

Words have their own hierarchy, their own protocol, their own artistic titles, their own plebeian stigmas.

What do you call a woman who knows where her husband is at all times? A widow.

They wanted to come in after the pounds", explained Pooh, "so I let them. It's the best way to write poetry, letting things come.

There are portraits and still-lifes And the first, because 'human' Does not excel the second

Values-oriented foreign policy of the free world would be much better, supported by the self-awareness of being on the right side of history.

In the worst of times the best among us never lose their moral compass, and that is how they emerge relatively unscathed.

Every one has her own love life. Every one has a dream to get a perfect life partner. But this is not so easy in real life. In fact, one doesn't love, it happens.

The goal of Christian mission is not success, but faithful witness; not power, but proclamation; not technique, but truth; not method, but message.

He has been disassembled by her. And if she has brought him to this, what has he brought her to?

When you play somebody, you pick up a lot of their gestures, his voice, the way he speaks, his body language. You don't often get that opportunity.