Tyranny and fantasy both like to write everyone else's lines.

Only half of writing is saying what you mean. The other half is preventing people from reading what they expected you to mean.

Nothing important comes with instructions.

What is more yours than what always holds you back?

The best way to know your faults is to notice which ones you accuse others of.

Writing is like washing windows in the sun. With every attempt to perfect clarity, you make a new smear.

When I am trying to write I turn on music so I can hear what is keeping me from hearing.

Sophistication is upscale conformity.

The happy and the suffering probably understand life equally well, but the sufferers may see a little more clearly how little it is that they understand.

It is the empty seats that listen most raptly.

All work is the avoidance of harder work.

The more books you read, the less topics you have in common with most of the people, that´s the price you pay for reading.

If God has created the world, his primary worry was certainly not to make its understanding easy for us

I wanted to be a certain kind of woman. I became that kind of woman.

You are always new. The last of your kisses was even the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest.

Great art is cathartic; it is always moral.

Some people think my father was a spy, because of working for that government agency in Vietnam, but he can't find his car keys, much less keep a national secret.

To me, comedies are usually the least funny movies. Movies that are actually a comedy are usually not all that funny. To me Goodfellas and Raging Bull are two of the funniest movies I ever saw.

It's terrifying to see someone inside of whom a vital spring seems to have been broken. It's particularly terrifying to see him in your mirror.

I was fascinated looking at John Galliano's couture. They're just extraordinary extravaganzas and I love it. I love looking at it because it's like going to a museum.

This is what love does and continues to do. It tastes like honey to adults and milk to children.