To read a novel is a difficult and complex art. You must be capable not only of great fineness of perception, but of great boldness of imagination.

She dares me to pour myself out like a living waterfall. She dares me to enter the soul that is more than my own; she extinguishes fear in mere seconds. She lets light come through.

A feminist is any woman who tells the truth about her life

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living.

I have a deeply hidden and inarticulate desire for something beyond the daily life.

I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river, to me you're everything that exists; the reality of everything.

The only advice ... that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions.

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.

Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.

Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.

Some people would rather be right that happy, I choose to be happy".

The people who don't know so much about me regard me more sexually.

The idea of trying to fight against extremism was written off as naive.

For his sake I'm sorry that Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil, but for our sake and the sake of music I'm glad he did.

The fool generalizes the particular; the nerd particularizes the general; some do both; and the wise does neither

Nobody wanted me. I just kept writing books and learning my craft. Most writers aren't very good in the beginning.

The establishment clause was transformed from a shield for religion into a cover for the official sanctioning of religious tolerance.

The more comprehensible the universe becomes the more pointless it seems.

The paperless office is possible, but not by imitating paper. Note that the horseless carriage did not work by imitating horses.

Like Guitar in Son of Solomon, and Son in Tar Baby, he believed that harmony could never exist between the races.