The most reliable pleasure afforded by theater is the intermission.

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.

Life is directly proportional to happiness and sadness.

Too many people in this world think small is the best they can do. Not you, Libby Strout. You weren't born for small! You don't know how to do small! Small is not in you!

I think Russian people are learning that democracy is not an alien thing; it's not a western invention.

It's about you. If you win, it's you; if you lose, it's you. Black and white. Nowhere to hide.

It follows that if you are not a mother you are not a grandmother. Your life has become unpunctuated, whereas the lives of other women around you have these distinct phases.

If you say something and back it up with your actions, you will provide the 'proof' for people who are listening to you, and they will much more willingly follow your lead.

Cancer can no longer be classified according to the organ in which it arises. It has to be characterized in terms of the genetic mutation that exists.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.

Those movies, Decline I and II and Suburbia, are dearly loved, but they never made any money. I didn't even have the rights for some of them.

I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news. Alaska isn't a foreign country.