All good biography, as all good fiction, comes down to the study of original sin, of our inherent disposition to choose death when we ought to choose life.

God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.

Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one's own Trojan horse.

The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots.

There is no logical reason why the camel of great art should pass through the needle of mob intelligence.

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.

All men should have a drop of treason in their veins, if nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears.

The trouble about man is twofold. He cannot learn truths which are too complicated; he forgets truths which are too simple.

The mind is its own enemy, that fights itself with the innumerable pliant and ineluctable arms of the octopus.

Writing has nothing to do with communication between person and person, only with communication between different parts of a person's mind.

God may create us but we Define

no matter how glorious the perception, no matter how gratifying the event, nothing is ever truly fulfilling until you draw closer to God and enter the mystical temple God placed within you.

If there is one ‘constant’ in the structure and theme of the wonder tale, it is transformation.

We were put to Dickens as children but it never quite took. That unremitting humanity soon had me cheesed off.

I am inclined to agree with the Head Master of Eton that pæderastic passions among schoolboys 'do no harm'; further, I think them the only redeeming feature of sexual life at public schools.

Control the coinage and the courts — let the rabble have the rest.

Some pain is simply the normal grief of human existence. That is pain that I try to make room for.

You don't need to crave anything, because you are already everything. It's all here, right now.

Try to put in the hearts of your children a love for home. Make them long to be with their families. So much sin could be avoided if our people really loved their homes.

A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.