Pray always for all the learned, the oblique, the delicate. Let them not be quite forgotten at the throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom.

Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.

I should like to bury something precious in every place where I've been happy and then, when I'm old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember.

One forgets words as one forgets names. One's vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.

I have lived carefully, sheltered myself from the cold winds, eaten moderately of what was in season, drunk fine claret, slept in my own sheets; I shall live long.

The truth is that Oxford is simply a very beautiful city in which it is convenient to segregate a certain number of the young of the nation while they are growing up.

Your actions, and your action alone, determines your worth.

He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich.

Beer commercials are so patriotic: Made the American Way. What does that have to do with America? Is that what America stands for? Feeling sluggish and urinating frequently?

Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all.

Wine is a bride who brings a great dowry to the man who woos her persistently and gracefully.

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.

Modern poets talk against business, poor things, but all of us write for money. Beginners are subjected to trial by market.

In a society in which equality is a fact, not merely a word, words of racial or sexual assault and humiliation will be nonsense syllables.

I love meeting people who've read my books. The prime reason to be on the planet is to make things I can show to other people: paintings, books, movies.

The game is not over until it is.

Once government's objectives were economic growth and social cohesion. Now they are prosperity, fairness and environmental care

If you have never tasted a braised vegetable, you'll find it is a revelation.

The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team.

Belief is what you do when there is no data.

In a way, my past gives me a little credibility. Not that anybody cares what I did nineteen years ago, but I did have a career, and a legitimate one, before I met my husband.