It seems to me now that the deep structures [in writing] are often subconscious and set in childhood.

You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

Time is how you spend your love.

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.

Don't confuse honours with achievement.

Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.

You cannot appreciate what you have never experienced. Sadly, full appreciation tends to come only after the experience is past.

I only had the right to sit in the shadows of the world, in complete silence. Whether I was laughed at, or told I was discusting, or thought of as unpleasant I would sit in the shadows.

Radio, sewing machine, bookends, ironing board and that great big piano lamp - peace, that's what I like. Butterbean vines planted all along the front where the strings are.

My God,' he gasped, 'you're fun to kiss.

Facials are my biggest beauty indulgence. Looking good is about having a good base. It's about taking care of your skin.

Technology has brought us to a point in which hundreds of millions if not billions of people have a voice, each voice can now be heard.

It is with wits as with razors, which are never so apt to cut those they are employed on as when they have lost their edge.

God is kind, but he is not soft. He takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life change.

When the vain speaker has sat down, and the people say 'what a good speech,' it still takes an ounce to balance an ounce.

It's unbelievable the primitive feelings that are aroused by rapid change.