Novels tell us the most truth about life: what it is, how we live it, what it might be for, how we enjoy and value it, and how we lose it.

A pier is a disappointed bridge; yet stare at it for long enough and you can dream it to the other side of the Channel.

Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.

The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.

The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly.

The land of embarrassment and breakfast.

When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.

History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.

What is the easiest, the most comfortable thing for a writer to do? To congratulate the society in which he lives: to admire its biceps, applaud its progress, tease it endearingly about its follies.

Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still.

The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of life.

Philosophy is the science which considers truth.

If I am a thief, it's because of private property.

I've always been somewhere down from the top, so I've never had to suffer being knocked off the top.

I'll go for God, country, and my baby. Sure, as these teardrops burn, I promise to return, and when I'm home, I'll cling to the arms of my baby.

Pop stars exist in a different space, one not necessarily tied to a patriotism. So Rihanna is everyone's. She doesn't just belong to America, even though she's a creation of America.

With some people, that love of music is just buried in them. It's so deep in them that they would play for free because they have to.

As an actor, you always want to try new things, so the fact that they set it up so that you can be doing different things each season is great.

American labor will realize that its function is not to increase jobs, but to multiply the wealth and to expand the numbers benefited by the wealth at the swiftest possible rate.

Tinsel is really snakes' mirrors.

It was absolutely marvelous working for Pauli. You could ask him anything. There was no worry that he would think a particular question was stupid, since he thought all questions were stupid.