The privacy of reading frees us to entertain the alien.

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.

Love seems to open and expand us right down to the cellular level, while fear causes us to contract and withdraw into ourselves.

A man's measure is his will.

Once writing becomes an act of listening instead of an act of speech, a great deal of the ego goes out of it.

I felt foolish and tired, as if I had been running to escape someone chasing me, only to look behind to discover there was no one there.

I love comedy. Playing the underdog, and getting the laughs is my form of entertainment. I could think of nothing different that I would want to be doing at this time in my life.

I use the kitchen as a pathway to achieve this happiness.

There are truths which one can only say after having won the right to say them.

I'd much rather be known as some curvy Kate than as some skinny stick.

You can't do anything if a person says no. In such a case, there's nothing you can do - unlike the popular cliche that pressure is exerted, or that maybe an unwilling source is done away with.

I am just a hard-working 23-year-old. When Maxim asked me to be on their cover, I was quite surprised. Of course, I was happy about it.