Learned researches lead to headaches, constipation, and befuddled quarreling.

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.

Maybe the best way for you to get us to summon our better selves is for you to show us yours.

[L]ove ... privileges another to see us in ways that would shame us and disgust others without the intervention of love.

If you accept the position of governor, part of your job is to make sure all your people have a decent shot at making something good out of their lives.

I call the discourse of power any discourse that engenders blame, hence guilt, in its recipient.

People are very interested in politics, they just don't like it labelled 'politics'.

Consider a very natural process, menstruation, and how the association has been created in which this process is dirty, degrading.

For me, a good YA novel is the best kind of comfort food.

I was a bleeding-heart liberal, until I got a job.

I learned long ago to accept the fact that not everything I create will see the light of day.

I'm not a person - and my wife also - we don't really go to the beach or anything like that. We go to cities.