We must use words as they are used, or stand aside from life.

A leopard does not change his spots, or change his feeling that spots are rather a credit.

Anyone who picks up a Compton-Burnett finds it very hard not to put it down.

There are different kinds of wrong. The people sinned against are not always the best.

My youth is escaping without giving me anything it owes me.

We can build upon foundations anywhere if they are well and firmly laid.

As regards plot I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots. And as I think a plot desirable and almost necessary, I have this extra grudge against life.

Real life seems to have no plots.

I never know why self-sacrifice is noble. Why is it better to sacrifice oneself than someone else?

Many people misjudge the permanent effect of sorrow, and their capacity to live in the past.

Appearances are not held to be a clue to the truth,' said his cousin. 'But we seem to have no other.

The purpose of life is not to be happy—but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.

Happiness is seeing blessings in disguise, beauty under camouflage, and love amid conflict.

Broken pencils still write beautiful songs.

One of my favorites is "Time and Again" by Jack Finney. It takes place in Manhattan and goes back and forth between 1882 and the 1950s. It's really a cult book.

I would be happy at a piano bar, singing. I just want to home in on being the best singer I can be.

The act of exploring what the men are, and moreover the separation of the good from the evil, is visitation; and the good are then removed, and the evil are left behind.

The dilemma is that if one does not risk anything one risks even more.

A gardener's work is never at an end; it begins with the year and continues to the next.

We have a potentially volatile situation but we sort of live with it, and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it.

I do know its important to keep the romantic spark alive in your marriage. But with four kids, sometimes it's enough just to keep yourself alive.