The cues that arouse desire are changed by Fashion, but feel like the proddings of Nature.

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.

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.

I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day.

I do not think we should tax people to a point where they are looking for tax loopholes and getting their money out of the country.

The race problem in the United States is the type of unpleasant problem which we would rather do without but which refuses to be buried.

The Bible is not interested in precisionism unless the context indicates that precision is particularly important.

You know who makes a great first impression? Liars.

A page of my journal is like a cake of portable soup. A little may be diffused into a considerable portion.

There is, in the heart, the hard-rendering profit. As if we were plucking the leaves from the trees.

Our bodies, apart from their brilliant role as drawing exercises, are the temples of our being. Like the bodies of all fauna, they deserve both our study and our appreciation.

We can bring to characters dark and bright sides that nobody even dreams about.