Self-pity is essentially humorless, devoid of that lightness of touch which gives understanding of life.

Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.

I get a warm feeling among my books.

Literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity.

It is not what happens to people that is significant, but what they think happens to them.

One of the worst things about life is not how nasty the nasty people are. You know that already. It is how nasty the nice people can be.

The whole idea of interviews is in itself absurd - one cannot answer deep questions about what one's life was like - one writes novels about it.

One passes through the world knowing few, if any, of the important things about even the people with whom one has been from time to time in the closest intimacy.

Parents. . . are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don't fulfil the promise of their early years.

He fell in love with himself at first sight and it is a passion to which he has always remained faithful. Selflove seems so often unrequited.

Books do furnish a room.

Yesterday was the first day of the rest of your life . . . and you messed it up again.

To comprehend the Hitler of 1919 is to comprehend the Hitler of the entire period from 1919 through

Life comes from death, and weakness teaches us strength.

The Democrats want to celebrate their successes but don't want to look out of touch with the people who haven't risen much in the last decade or so really.

Cruelty, I truly believe, is the one and only sin.

Something that distinguishes my solo work from normal rap production is that it has a lot of melody - it's not just cutting up a song and having someone rap over it.

Sometimes "Yes" is rhetoric enough.

Faith is what gets you started. Hope is what keeps you going. Love is what brings you to the end.

You can't win together if you don't work together.

It seems that, notwithstanding the dramatic increases in manmade CO2 emissions over the last decade, the world's warming has stopped.