Nothing easier than to confuse busyness with goodness.

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.

Despair? I don't despair. I have never once in my life despaired anything. I make a point not to go further than resignation.

If you've never had a mother or a father, you grow up seeking something you're never going to find, ever. You seek it in love and in people and in beauty.

Only the man who has known freedom Can define his prison.

I just adored working in London. It was in London where I first had the idea of making a film.

I knew I was going bald when it was taking longer and longer to wash my face.

I never stopped studying Buddhism. In the past few years, in between movies, I do a retreat.

We still have a long way to go before we can declare America safe, and that means doing a better job along our borders, as well.

I find having a column a very difficult form of journalism. I'm not a natural like Tom Friedman and Anna Quindlen.

It was absolutely critical to renew the Bush tax cuts. Letting them expire would result in a massive tax increase that would retard economic growth.

See? My plans don’t all suck. Just most of them.