Sometimes I wonder why God ever trusts talent in the hands of women, they usually make such an infernal mess of it. I think He must do it as a sort of ghastly joke.

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.

Success is never so interesting as struggle

Of all the bewildering things about a new country, the absence of human landmarks is one of the most depressing and disheartening.

The sky was a midnight-blue, like warm, deep, blue water, and the moon seemed to lie on it like a water-lily, floating forward with an invisible current.

The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor.

It takes a great deal of experience to become natural.

Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen.

Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky.

The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.

The end is nothing; the road is all.

You shouldn't spend all your time worrying about the love that leaves, because then you might overlook the love that was always there.

The more we are willing to separate from distraction and step into the open arms of boredom, the more writing will get on the page.

...Belief is strong. Stronger than rationality. Fear, love hope -all rational emotions, but they sway people more fiercely than any fact-based argument.

Why did God invent economists? To make weathermen feel good about themselves.

I prefer my Mexican food to have a little bit of an animal that suffered a little bit. That's some of the best food.

It still surprises me when I find something in any North Carolina newspaper that isn't mad at me about something.

The urge to consume is fathered by the value system which emphasizes the ability of the society to produce.

There are two main drivers of asset class returns - inflation and growth.

In America, there are some artists who are more of an image than music; if your star status goes down there, you're finished.

What is Africa, anyway? Even I don't know what Africa is, entirely. But I know that it's not some of these simplified sound bites you hear in America.