She is very plain. What does Henry see in her?'" "He thinks she's stupid. He finds it restful.

I dislike pastiche; it attracts attention to the language only.

It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.

Write a book you'd like to read. If you wouldn't read it, why would anybody else? Don't write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book's ready.

Fortitude. ... It means fixity of purpose. It means endurance. It means having the strength to live with what constrains you.

Feminism hasn't failed, it's just never been tried.

Truth can break the gates down, truth can howl in the street; unless truth is pleasing, personable and easy to like, she is condemned to stay whimpering at the back door.

If you have a good story idea, don't assume it must form a prose narrative. It may work better as a play, a screenplay or a poem. Be flexible.

The things you think are the disasters in your life are not the disasters really. Almost anything can be turned around: out of every ditch, a path, if you can only see it.

I didn't cry much after I was 35, but staggered stony-faced into middle age, a handkerchief still in my bag just in case.

You're only young once, they say, but doesn't it go on for a long time? More years than you can bear.

You can't worry about the future so much that you miss out on the present.

Compassion is a sign of inner peace. Kindness is a sign of inner strength. Be kind and be compassionate.

Sometimes virtue starves while vice is fed.

America: the only country in the world where failing to promote yourself is regarded as being arrogant.

The Bible says that it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. It doesn't say that it is impossible!

Peace and quiet are preferred. Victory should not be praised.

Don't forget where you come from Don't die holding on to your words Cause you know you got a whole world to change But understand who you got to change first

Nobody quite knows the truth about cats purring, but it does seem to be also a self-healing thing for them, which is why, when you take your cat to the vet and it's frightened, it will purr.

Harold Wilson is a petty bourgeois and will remain so in spirit even if they make him a Viscount.

As far as action is concerned, our films have been coming up with some great sequences. In fact, I think Hollywood is copying Bollywood by getting their heroes to bash up 15 guys at a time.