What better way to get to know someone than through her choice and treatment of books?

I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy

I don't pretend reality is the same for everyone.

Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother, but the rest of the time there was none. This story is about one of those other times.

For me to see is to read. It has always been that way.

Of course I loved books more than people.

Boys do not leave their boyhood behind when they leave off their school uniform.

A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth.

But silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grown pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you.

When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic, yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one ever expects to be fulfilled.

A story so cherished it has to be dressed in casualness to disguise its significance in case the listener turned out to be unsympathetic.

Believe you can and you're halfway there.

Believe in yourself, listen to your gut, and do what you love.

Future orientation is combined with a notion and expectation of progress, and nothing is impossible.

What do you think this is, a f****** tea party? No you can't have a f****** glass of water, you can f****** wait like the rest of us.

I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.

No single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable.

After 10 years of French torture - psychological torture - it's great to do an American movie.

Were we faultless, we would not derive such satisfaction from remarking the faults of others.

Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heav'n.

According to this view, democracy is a product of western culture, and it cannot be applied to the Middle East which has a different cultural, religious, sociological and historical background.