When I write a book, I hope to be beyond mortal by the time I'm finished.

There's something to be said about a slightly plump person—you have just enough of too much.

The inevitable is no less a shock just because it is inevitable.

Express everything you like. No word can hurt you. None. No idea can hurt you. Not being able to express an idea or word will hurt you more. Like a bullet.

I was given a dictionary when I was seven, and I read it because I had nothing else to read. I read it the way you read a book.

People don't make changes because things are wonderful.

I would be lost without the feeling of antagonism that people have towards me. I write out of defiance.

People only say I’m angry because I’m black and I’m a woman.

A great piece of literature encompasses all that is and all that will be.

...yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present.

I'm so used to being misunderstood.

Everyone has something they can't live without.

When people are really drunk they have a propensity to harm themselves and others - they fall off buildings, they drive into other cars.

We all need to accept everyone.

The fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength

Caution, Sir! I am eternally tired of hearing that word caution. It is nothing but the word of cowardice!

My first really good guitar was a Gibson J-45.

I had still never read one of the Bond books when the movie Dr. No came out.

While Romney has an overall deficit with women voters, his biggest disadvantage is with college educated women - wherever they work, at home, in an office, a store or a factory.

I could be an idiot, or I can serve in Congress, but I repeat myself.

What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time?