Little by little, the pimps have taken over the world. They don't do anything, they don't make anything - they just stand there and take their cut.

Only the mediocre are always at their best.

Sadness flies on the wings of the morning, and out of the heart of darkness comes the light.

When you see a woman who can go nowhere without a staff of admirers, it is not so much because they think she is beautiful, it is because she has told them they are handsome.

I'm not afraid of death. It's the stake one puts up in order to play the game of life.

There is no better way of exercising the imagination than the study of law. No poet ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets the truth.

The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.

One of the privileges of the great is to witness catastrophes from a terrace.

To seek out in a world full of joy the one thing that is certain to give you pain, and hug it to your bosom with all your strength; that's the greatest human happiness.

A man's name, title, and rank are artificial and impermanent; they do nothing to reveal what he really is, even to himself.

I believe in the gods; or rather I believe that I believe in the gods. But I don't believe that they are great brooding presences watching over us; I believe they are completely absent minded.

She felt damned. As though she were marching to her death. She felt like had been sentenced. And yet she felt eerily free.

Every song deserves lyrics. Deserves a story to tell.

I've seen prayers answered. But often, in my experiences, if you get what you pray for, you've really shortchanged yourself.

The proof of Fermat's Last Theorem underscores how stable mathematics is through the centuries - how mathematics is one of humanity's long continuous conversations with itself.

Some Pulitzer winners - novelists - have confided to me that getting the prize screwed them up. It messed with their heads. That hasn't been my experience.

One thing living in Japan did for me was to make me feel that what is left out of a work of art is as important as, if not more important than, what is put in.

I took to the Bodleian Library as to a lover and ... would sit long hours in Bodley's arms, to emerge, blinking and dazed with the smell and feel of all those books.

Many think that assigning blame settles matters.

You are heaven's Halley's comet; we have one shot at seeing you shine.

Recipes are not assembly manuals. Recipes are guides and suggestions for a process that is infinitely nuanced. Recipes are sheet music.