The novel leads you places that you never could have gotten to otherwise.

You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

Time is how you spend your love.

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.

Don't confuse honours with achievement.

Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.

To succeed in life, doing your best is not enough, you should also improve your best.

When I hear that "Possession is the grave of love, " I remember that a religion may begin with the resurrection.

It was a good thing I recognized you or I might have had a lovely meal of you with some parsley. And potatoes.

For with dandies, a joke is the only way of making yourself respected.

The business of life is to enjoy oneself everything else is a mockery.

We're one of the only animals in the world that don't really think of ourselves as animals, but we are animals, and we must respect our fellow animals.

Use PMA: Positive Mental Actitude.

I stumble all the time parenting my daughter. I ask her for forgiveness all the time and I preach forgiveness to her.

There are pretenses which are very sincere, and marriage is their school.

On examinations: Das Wissen ist der Tad der Forschung. Knowledge is the death of research. Nernst's motto.