The only reason I didn't kill myself after I read the reviews of my first book was because we have two rivers in New York and I couldn't decide which one to jumo into.

For Catholics before Vatican II, the land of the free was pre-eminently the land of Sister Says-except, of course, for Sister, for whom it was the land of Father Says.

Of course, history is only a muddle of facts and a fuddle of professors, and anyone who thinks it is one clear voice saying "Arise, sir Knight" deserves a life sentence in Camelot.

Saloons provide moments of genuine ecstasy - but only if your soul is at peace and the rest of your life bears contemplating. Otherwise, they are palaces of misery.

I picked up the writing on the very day he died. It was the only consolation I could find.

The American male doesn't mature until he has exhausted all other possibilities.

Suicide is about life, being in fact the sincerest form of criticism life gets.

If the French were really intelligent, they'd speak English.

The worse we treat people in this country, the more delicately we talk about them.

Mr Michener, as timeless as a stack of 'National Geographics,' is the ultimate Summer Writer. Just as one goes back to the cottage in Maine, so one goes back to one's Michener.

The actual Irish weather report is really a recording made in 1922, which no one has had occasion to change. "Scattered showers, periods of sunshine."

Being a reactionary is not about believing in certain solutions, but about having an acute sense of the complexity of the problems.

Preserve a sense of proportion in your attitude to everything that pleases you, and make the most of them while they are at their best.

More conservative advocacy work often encourages portrayals of trans people as people who deserve rights. Deservingness, of course, corresponds to national racial, gender and ability norms.

What you don't want to know about yourself wants to be known, which is why it keeps 'showing up' at your door unannounced!

If alcohol is queen, then tobacco is her consort. It's a fond companion for all occasions, a loyal friend through fair weather and foul.

If achieving your potential requires favorable judgment by others, you are much less likely to succeed.

So I've worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me.

While growing up, I lived in my own fantasy world. I had kind of a rough childhood, so I created my own reality.

A Not So Big House feels more spacious than many of its oversized neighbors because it is space with substance, all of it in use every day.

Dream, rather than let yourself be dreamt