We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.

Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.

When I wrote The Virgin Suicides, I gave myself very strict rules about the narrative voice: the boys would only be able to report what they had seen or found or what had been told to them.

Basically what we have here is a dreamer. Somebody out of touch with reality. When she jumped, she probably thought she'd fly

It was one of those humid days when the atmosphere gets confused. Sitting on the porch, you could feel it: the air wishing it was water.

In the end, the tortures tearing the Lisbon girls pointed to a simple reasoned refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to them, so full of flaws.

Depression is like a bruise that never goes away. A bruise in your mind. You just got to be careful not to touch it where it hurts. It's always there, though.

You never get over it, but you get to where it doesn't bother you so much.

It was like autumn, looking at her. it was like driving up north to see the colors.

She held herself very straight, like Audrey Hepburn, whom all women idolize and men never think about.

She may have looked normal on the outside, but once you'd seen her handwriting you knew she was deliciously complicated inside.

A sword needs a sheath, heh, and a wedding needs a bedding.

When I was very young, before I could read, I remember being very interested in comic books.

Without poetry, religion becomes obscure, false, and malignant; without philosophy, licentious in all wantonness, and lascivious to the point of self-castration.

I'm looking forward to visiting the Philippines. I heard that there are so many big malls there and so many beaches.

From 1918 on, trade unionists were to express from the platforms of their congresses the workers' desire for peace through a rational organization of the world.

Obama is for the 300 million souls of the United States what Andreas Lubitz was for the 150 souls of the Germanwings flight.

To be generous is the best way to live in this world.

There is no true word that is not at the same time a praxis. Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world.

Hoist up sail while gale doth last, Tide and wind stay no man's pleasure.

The human will is an amazing thing. Time after time, it has triumphed against unbelievable odds.