The Crimean War is one of the bad jokes of history.

The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic arrangement into three reigns: James I, James II, and the Old Pretender

Greatness is so often a courteous synonym for great success.

Any stigma, as the old saying is, will serve to beat a dogma.

History repeats itself. Historians repeat each other.

Success is little more than a chemical compound of man with moment.

The detective story is the normal recreation of noble minds.

People who jump to conclusions rarely alight on them.

Autobiography is an unrivaled vehicle for telling the truth about other people.

Biography is a very definite region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium.

The preface is the most important part of a book. Even reviewers read a preface.

A collected poems' is either a gravestone or a testimonial to survival.

Every weekend we've been trying to go out of town, to let people know about this album. I've been trying to host parties. It's hard, because it's a lot of work to do both.

Design Star' was incredible, and I didn't think it could get any better, and then 'Color Splash' happened.

There is no trajectory so pathetic as that of an artist in decline.

The Runaways' audience was 90 percent male. That was kind of depressing...Why don't women-our own gender-come out and support us?

And shade the violets, That they may bind the moss in leafy nets.

Scientology is probably the most stigmatized religion in America already.

I'm always doubting because I've been told so much that, you're not the right look or you're not the right sound, and, you know, whether I do jazz or R&B there are always complaints.

You're always nervous about how a film lands with an audience.

The best that can be said for anybody is probably that you misunderstood him favorably.