The Portrait of a Lady is entirely successful in giving one the sense of having met somebody far too radiantly good for this world.

God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.

Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one's own Trojan horse.

The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots.

There is no logical reason why the camel of great art should pass through the needle of mob intelligence.

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.

All men should have a drop of treason in their veins, if nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears.

The trouble about man is twofold. He cannot learn truths which are too complicated; he forgets truths which are too simple.

The mind is its own enemy, that fights itself with the innumerable pliant and ineluctable arms of the octopus.

Writing has nothing to do with communication between person and person, only with communication between different parts of a person's mind.

Sing then the core of dark and absolute oblivion where the soul at last is lost in utter peace.

Nobody in my family ever surfed, but they would always bring me to the beach.

There is no such thing as Intelligence; one has intelligence of this or that. One must have intelligence only for what one is doing.

Serendipity is when you find things you weren't looking for because finding what you are looking for is so damned difficult.

I have simply wished to assert the reasoned and independent feeling of my own individuality within a total knowledge of tradition.

I want to be sure that if people are coming to a show and paying $100 that I want to give them their money's worth. I try to give 100 percent.

Fine dancing, I believe like virtue, must be its own reward. Those who are standing by are usually thinking of something very different.

Everyone calls himself a friend, but only a fool relies on it; nothing is commoner than the name, nothing rarer than the thing.

Done to death by slanderous tongue

God will take care of what you go through. You take care of how you go through it.