It took me years to learn that character is fate and that no one can be made over.

Writing was my real life and I was more at home with the people of my imagination than with the best I met in the objective world.

Never trust a woman who will not lie about her age after thirty. She is unwomanly and unhuman and there is no knowing what crimes she will commit.

The final result of too much routine is death in life.

Every leader of a great revolution is a fanatic and a Jesuit.

Success is a great healer.

The human mind has an infinite capacity for self-deception.

All women want to be understood until they understand themselves.

there is only one thing we do know and that is that we do not know anything.

the only revenge worth having is success.

... the irony of life is not that you cannot forget but that you can.

No matter how little your light is, let it shine

My father always used to say that when you die, if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life.

It makes your buttocks ache walking on flat ground all the time.

I don't care if you get up in the morning and don't wash, don't put any make-up on, don't do your hair, even, but you have to have clothes if you want to look different.

Freedom to vote is valuable primarily as a means to safeguard other freedoms.

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.

If people I've never met or don't know say that what I've written or done or said means anything to them, then I'm happy to take it at face value, for once. It cheers me up.

Take away a nation's heritage and they are more easily persuaded.

The wisest fool in Christendom.

Life's more fun when you take the chance that it might end.