The first divorce in the world may have been a tragedy, but the hundred-millionth is not necessarily one.

Aphorisms are bad for novels. They stick in the reader's teeth.

The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait.

To be misunderstood can be the writer's punishment for having disturbed the reader's peace. The greater the disturbance, the greater the possibility of misunderstanding.

If a book is really good, it deserves to be read again, and if it's great, it should be read at least three times.

In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people's lives.

Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city.

A bookcase is as good as a view, as much of a panorama as the sight of a city or a river. There are dawns and sunsets in books - storms and zephyrs.

There are few things more subtly distressing than an inappropriate gift from someone close to you.

The tension between 'yes' and no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot,' makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self.

It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn't wait to leave.

Life grows too quickly it quickly turns into memories.

I have three older brothers, and each one of them has chosen one of my parents' education. Two of them are actors, and the third is a doctor as my mother is.

The Aryan stands firm, one with God in his attitude to the world and its people.

When I'm going through something that has a big impact on my life, it's much easier to sing.

The universe is a vast system of exchange. Every artery of it is in motion, throbbing with reciprocity, from the planet to the rotting leaf.

In many cases, the decision to study music has robbed them of the ability to play music. They have lost respect for music that comes from within because they have been programmed to feel "unworthy".

We human beings grow through our failures, not our virtues.

You know I am not born to tread in the beaten track the peculiar bent of my nature pushes me on.

Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a certain built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men.

I'm not one of those people who write all the time. Sometimes I'll go several months without writing anything. I'll sometimes second guess myself and wonder if I'll ever write another song.