favors are always for ourselves. Especially when we ask for things for other people.

I just go to lunch. And I never know when something is going into the file and something is not.

I have always had a particular antagonism for the military.

I never know what's going to happen in a novel. I don't have a plan or an outline.

And off in the far distance, the gold on the wings of the angel atop the bell tower of San Marco flashed in the sun, bathing the entire city in its glistening benediction.

Venetians feel affection and loyalty to their city, rather than to the Italian state.

This is a fallen world. People lie, the truth gets distorted, and that's the way it is. What's for dinner ?

All through graduate school, instead of having a television I read murder mysteries: Hammett, Chandler, Ruth Rendell, P. D. James.

Oh, so seldom does fate cast our enemy into our hands, to do with as we will

And I don't want to live anywhere where I am famous. It makes me very, very uncomfortable, because it conveys an advantage over people, and I don't like that.

I never wanted to be rich or successful or famous. I just wanted to be happy and have fun.

Chaos was the law of nature

This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.

Inspiration must find answering inspiration.

She simply stood there and waited for him to show her the next move. And hoped it only involved sword fighting and not seduction.

Quentin Tarantino asked me to work with him but there is no way I am going to do that while Matthew Vaughn is working in film.

Men who don't understand women fall into two groups: Bachelors and Husbands.

If God allows proof that he exists he robs people of faith and without faith what is God? Nothing.

I think when people are repressing things, or burying things, that can manifest in all sorts of ways.

No lady is ever a gentleman.

True art must be evidence of happiness, contentment and purity of its authors.