Life is an effort that deserves a better cause.

The streets of Vienna are paved with culture, the streets of other cities with asphalt.

Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time in essays.

Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.

I had a terrible vision: I saw an encyclopedia walk up to a polymath and open him up.

The sound principle of a topsy-turvy lifestyle in the framework of an upside-down world order has stood every test.

An aphorism is never exactly true; it is either a half-truth or one-and-a-half truths.

A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.

Newspapers have roughly the same relationship to life as fortune-tellers to metaphysics.

Christianity has enriched the erotic meal with the appetizer of curiosity and spoiled it with the dessert of remorse.

The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are.

A life without enemies is a life not lived.

A little crazy is good

The audience was swell. They were so polite they covered their mouths when they yawned.

I loved the whole New Romantic, New Wave thing... New Order, Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, Blancmange, Yazoo.

Do I really deserve this pleasure? This is American, too-the insecurity about whether we have earned our happiness.

She said 'I love you' as if it were a secret, and an immense one.

I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.

Katniss: I guess all those hours decorating cakes paid off. Peeta: Yes, frosting. The final defence of the dying. (252)

If this depression stays with us, the loser Tuesday is going to be the winner.

All lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one.