The cliché is dead poetry. English, being the language of an imaginative race, abounds in clichés, so that English literature is always in danger of being poisoned by its own secretions.

Middle age snuffs out more talent than even wars or sudden death.

Everyone is a bore to someone. That is unimportant. The thing to avoid is being a bore to oneself.

Those who have money think that the most important thing in the world is love. The poor know it is money.

Wisdom is keeping a sense of fallibility of all our views and opinions.

We are closer to the ants than to the butterflies. Very few people can endure much leisure.

In a happy marriage it is the wife who provides the climate, the husband the landscape.

We confess our bad qualities to others out of fear of appearing naive or ridiculous by not being aware of them.

Old age takes away from us what we have inherited and gives us what we have earned.

The only test of work of literature is that it shall please other ages than its own.

Words are as recalcitrant as circus animals, and the unskilled trainer can crack his whip at them in vain.

Laying up treasures in heaven will draw the heart heavenward.

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

I would wager that the number of civilians that were killed [in] a typical week under Saddam Hussein was probably more than we killed during the weeks we were at war there.

Insecurity is just something that's there all the time. I've never been crippled by it.

Good families always ritualize the table. You can say, "This is a Christmas meal; this is a birthday meal."

Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.

There's no doubt about it... I was born a feminist.

To ponder is not to brood or grieve or even meditate. It is to wonder at a deep level.

Admitting one's ignorance is the first step in acquiring knowledge.

Prayer for me is an updward leap of the heart