Sophistication knows the score, but is powerless to change it.

Pain narrows consciousness; pleasure blurs it.

When Medusa looks in the mirror, she sees the Lady of Sorrows.

My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.

Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism, not a return to the hedonism of youth

The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path.

Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.

The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.

'Be faithful to your roots' is the liberal version of 'Stay in your ghetto.'

Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.

Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.

Without love, life is a barren field.

To walk quietly until the miracle in everything speaks is poetry, whether we write it down or not.

We often live next to monsters unawares.

What we now call school training, the pursuit of fixed studies at stated hours under the constant guidance of a teacher, I could scarcely be said to have enjoyed.

And I'm hoping that between now and two years from now and four years from now and future election cycles, people have gotten past the hype and the hysteria of these most recent allegations.

You won't rise to the occasion - you'll default to your level of training.

I don't, for the record, have a Tweety Bird fetish.

The movies are not my first priority - the theater is.

I study much, and the more I study, the oftener I go back to those first principles which are so simple that childhood itself can lisp them.

Is it going to make me feel any better to make an extra million? That million might be more important to the team.