There were good and bad kinds of weakness in men, and she had come to the conclusion that the key was to know which kind you were dealing with.

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.

...Death, " she said, as her hand dropped away, " is how you know you were alive in the first place.

History, writing, infect after a time a man's sense of himself.

Block out all the negative energy, and just love.

I think the best music videos are the ones that have nothing to do with the song. Those are all my favorites.

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.

I wouldn't want to disappoint my fans by doing anything exciting. You've got to stay true to your roots.

Everything is ecstasy inside. We just don't know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind [it] is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever.

Medicines are only fit for old people.

Optimism is a philosophy based on the belief that basically life is good, that, in the long run, the good in life overbalances the evil.

It is kind of hard to hold a lot in. But for me… it’s sometimes even harder to let it out.