The declared meaning of a spoken sentence is only its overcoat, and the real meaning lies underneath its scarves and buttons.

To know you will be lonely is not the same as being lonely.

People do not love those whose eyes show that they are somewhere else

I have never begun a novel which wasn't going to stretch me further than I had ever stretched before.

I'm interested in where we are, where we're going, where we've come from.

Swimming always cleans your soul

It's like standing on the edge of a cliff. This is especially true of the first draft. Every day you're making up the earth you're going to stand on.

Good writing of course requires talent, and no one can teach you to have talent.

Nostalgia is something we think of as fuzzy. But it's pain. Pain concerning the past.

My greatest pleasure is to invent. My continual mad ambition is to make something true and beautiful that never existed in the world before.

I'm always the one with the activist friends. I've been an activist very little.

He had memorized the entire Qur'an and lectured on the nature of evil, which, like a shadow, cannot exist independently of the good silhouettes.

Psychoanalysts believe that the only "normal" people are those who cause not trouble to either themselves or anyone else.

I know of musicians who have played together for decades who hate each other. The Modern Jazz Quartet for one.

Let our hearts touch far horizons. Let our love know no borders, Draw the Circles wide until, No one stands alone.

I started 'Society's Child' on a bus in East Orange as I was going home from school. I saw a black and white couple sitting there and started thinking about it.

In the end when you accept yourself for who you are and you work with what you've got, you couldn't be more beautiful because you're confident and everyone notices.

I've never liked the name Marilyn. I've often wished that I had held out that day for Jean Monroe. But I guess it's too late to do anything about it now.

Every time the rider forgets to regulate the cadence, the horse begins to take control.

Dangerous he who thinks it safe to die!

"The way of Cain" refers to any individual who attempts to approach God on his or her own terms rather than on God's terms.