Nobody ever wrote a good book simply by collecting a number of accurate facts and valid ideas.

God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.

Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one's own Trojan horse.

The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots.

There is no logical reason why the camel of great art should pass through the needle of mob intelligence.

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.

All men should have a drop of treason in their veins, if nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears.

The trouble about man is twofold. He cannot learn truths which are too complicated; he forgets truths which are too simple.

The mind is its own enemy, that fights itself with the innumerable pliant and ineluctable arms of the octopus.

Writing has nothing to do with communication between person and person, only with communication between different parts of a person's mind.

The mind always found its way back to baseline.

Throughout it all, you are still, always, you: beautiful and bruised, known and unknowable. And isn't that - just you - enough?

It is arrogant to believe that you know what is true for you. Surely you know in your own life with you that you cannot be trusted.

People nearly always believe, and are willing to back it up with weapons and cruelty, that their religion and way of life is better than the other person's

A guest of one's time and not a member of the household.

A perfect schedule is to be able to do something dark and then go into something lighter to ease up a little bit.

Do your best and then relax. Let things go on in a natural way, rather than force them.

You know, if you want to meet a lot of Iraqi leaders, the best places are the hotels in Amman or in London. In general the government here is amazingly unpopular.

I think we need to recover the depth, the subtlety, the generosity of imagination, the respect for wisdom that so marked Islam in its great ages.

If this be not love, it is madness, and then it is pardonable.