Lovely thoughts came flying to meet me like birds. They weren't my thoughts. I couldn't think anything half so exquisite. They came from somewhere.

There isn't any such thing as an ordinary life. (92)

Nobody with any real sense of humor *can* write a love story. . . . Shakespeare is the exception that proves the rule. (90-91)

My pen shall heal, not hurt.

Don't try to write anything you can't feel - it will be a failure - 'echoes nothing worth

Fear is a vile thing, and is at the bottom of almost every wrong and hatred of the world.

Satirize wickedness if you must--but pity weakness.

No one can be free who has a thousand ancestors.

I have made up my mind that I will never marry. I shall be wedded to my art.

[Ilse] was suffering so keenly that she wanted to arraign the universe at the bar of her pain.

He was so lonely that he laughed at himself.

your honesty is your luck line

The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves.

The reason that people in the intellectual community argue that football is dangerous is because there's now a large swath of society that has no relationship to physicality or potential violence.

Either you participate in the community like an adult or you leave and do your own thing.

Be bold. You gotta be bold.

Art seems to me to be above all a state of soul.

Fair play to all those who dare to dream and don't give up.

If you think you can't do something, you can't. But if you think you can, you may be surprised to discover that you can.

The one absolute certain way to bring this nation to ruin ... would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.

You have to look inside yourself and you have to say, well, what am I about? Why does anyone need this? Why does anyone need a 'Tom Ford' jacket? What do I believe in?