This is the world, he thought. And I am in it.

He wore his medals. He had a surprising number of them, the real kind, not the ones you got for turning up. Although turning up was no mean thing, some days.

He wondered if he should try to talk to the boy like that. Perhaps the boy wondered why he didn't. But they had silence, and not many people had that.

He concluded that governments were like wars: the reasons and the forces might change, but it was still the same dying over the same soil.

Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.

I do not read for I have renounced life, I read because one life is just not enough for me.

Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God.

It is the personality of the mistress that the home expresses. Men are forever guests in our homes, no matter how much happiness they may find there.

I feel like if I won an award and I was giving my speech and the music started, that's all I'd remember, the humiliation I felt when the music started. It would mar the entire experience for me.

Always do something that requires you and your date to talk.

Focus on something that stirs your soul, it's hard to excel at anything that you don't love.

I know the world that I am painting is not a reality. It is a whim, an entertainment to provoke something in people, whether as escapism or relief. I think that is very valid.

Perfection is almost an illness with me, but sometimes I have moments where everything is absolutely clear and you can feel, rather than think.

Great music has layers of things to discover. I try to do so every night.