When I think about it, if I had to choose, I'd rather be happy than write.

Yes, I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness, sad as an eagle without wings, sad as a violin with only one string and that one broken, sad as a woman who is growing old. Sad, sad, sad.

You can pretend for a long time, but one day it all falls away and you are alone. We are alone in the most beautiful place in the world.

A room is, after all, a place where you hide from the wolves. That's all any room is.

The feeling of Sunday is the same everywhere, heavy, melancholy, standing still.

I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness.

I am the only real truth I know.

Now I no longer wish to be loved, beautiful, happy or successful. I want one thing and one thing only - to be left alone.

I've been so ridiculous all my life that a little bit more or a little bit less hardly matters now.

Love was a terrible thing. You poisoned it and stabbed at it and knocked it down into the mud - well down - and it got up and staggered on, bleeding and muddy and awful. Like - like Rasputin.

We can't all be happy, we can't all be rich, we can't all be lucky - and it would be so much less fun if we were... There must be the dark background to show up the bright colours.

Toughened or coarsened by their worldly lives, the other dissenters could shrug and move on, but Souter couldn't. His whole life was being a judge.

By perseverance the snail reached the ark.

We must rediscover the distinction between hope and expectation.

But then in novels the most indifferent hero comes out right at last. Some god comes out of a theatrical cloud and leaves the poor devil ten thousand-a-year and a title.

Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one's potential.

I'm not a top-five player yet.

... we have to learn to use that force (love) among all that lives, and in the use of it consists our knowledge of God. Where there is love there is life; hatred leads to destruction.

One of the greatest gifts a parent can give a child is to help them find their talents.

I started my music career at 18 and for a long while I let other people handle my affairs.

Whenever the cause of the people is entrusted to professors, it is lost.