Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be.

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.

Please, dear God of happiness, show the radiance of your spectrum to our world, which here means to forget everything.

The daring leader helps the people see a future state, greater than their own imagination, and worthy of pursuit.

In the end we will realise that we only came to earth to love

I just think that all of us in this room should have a voice in how the USA is represented. And he don't allow us our voice, that's all I'm saying.

The only way to cure an egotist from bragging is by surgery--amputation at the neck.

Knowledge is but folly unless it is guided by grace.

If you care to see God, be pure. If you will not be pure, you will grow more and more impure.

Just the knowledge that a good book is waiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.

You can just never desist. You have to always push back, whatever the pressures put on you.

I've had a year out of work, more, and just toughed it out. There are those who think that all actors are overpaid. I beg to differ.