Winning means outlasting everyone else.

Pain narrows consciousness; pleasure blurs it.

When Medusa looks in the mirror, she sees the Lady of Sorrows.

My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.

Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism, not a return to the hedonism of youth

The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path.

Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.

The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.

'Be faithful to your roots' is the liberal version of 'Stay in your ghetto.'

Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.

Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.

Before you find the magic of life you have to open yourself up to the possibility of it being there.

Here is a lesson to brand in fire across any young historian's mind: If you try to do too much, you will not do anything.

In times of need, you will know the souls who love you.

Out where the handclasp's a little stronger Out where the smile dwells a little longer That's where the West begins.

The theory of the indirect approach operates on the line of least expectation.

When I first started out, I was trying to write stories about nurses and lawyers and a lot of people I didn't know anything about, and they just weren't working.

The only question that really counts, must be thins one: are things getting better or are they getting worse?

Cinema explains American society. It's like a Western, with good guys and bad guys, where the weak don't have a place.

Human government is more or less perfect as it approaches nearer or diverges farther from the imitation of this perfect plan of divine and moral government.

I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now.