All those words of praise they use for novels - spare, economical. Why should I shell out £17 for economical?

A novelist should make you realize nothing is stable. If you don't believe anything with robustness, you're doing something more radical than anything else.

I could use the company but I can't go through the pain of getting it.

The girls pick snouts from the pack as though they're chocolates and it matters which they select.

I'm a Jewish Jane Austen.

I took the route favoured by all worldly failures and became a spiritual success.

It's never over till it's over with a friend.

What it is to see, what liberties are taken when one looks, where looking leaves one vis-a-vis one's subject, or how far looking ultimately becomes one's subject - these are important questions.

In the matrimonial life of the Jewish male every day is Yom Kippur.

You can't have a church town without belief and you can't have belief without intolerance.

But he didn't have to listen to his father. Taking after your father was optional, wasn't it?

Music wasn't history class

The sonatas of Mozart are unique they are too easy for children and too difficult for artists.

And my dad, you're a great actor but you're a better father.

It's great to tell people you have your own show, but that's where the fun stops.

whatever the uses of a room, they are seriously interfered with if it be not preserved as a world by itself.

Amid life's quests, there seems but worthy one: to do men good.

If you see one cold and vehement at the same time, set him down for a fanatic.

I never played with anything like toys. I wanted to be grown-up.

Madame de Stael thought it was pride in mankind to endeavour to penetrate the secret of the universe; and speaking of the higher metaphysics she said: "I prefer the Lord's Prayer to it all."

If a film is well made, then great, whatever it's about.