He didn't want to please his readers. He wanted to stretch them until they twanged.

Only in art will the lion lie down with the lamb, and the rose grow without thorn.

Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful.

Probably human cruelty is fixed and eternal. Only styles change.

My life looked good on paper - where, in fact, almost all of it was being lived.

When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable

Closure is a greasy little word which, moreover, describes a nonexistent condition. The truth, Venus, is that nobody gets over anything.

Perhaps there are other bits of my life that would take on content, take on shadow, if only I read more and thought less about money.

When you’ve lost all your play, guess what love becomes. Work. Work that gets harder every hour.

Love is blind; but it makes you see the blind man; teetering on the roadside . . .

Every 10 years you're a different person, and the really great books evolve with you as you get older. They're full of new rewards.

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.

What can't be cured must be endured.

Joseph went from prison toprime minister from trials to triumph, from scar-weary to stardom.

Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.

If I go onstage, I want to give people everything they want and more. I'll wash their car for them on their way out.

Hitler was a vegetarian. Just goes to show, vegetarianism, not always a good thing. Can in some extreme cases lead to genocide.

In a democracy everybody has a right to be represented, including the jerks.

It might be argued that genuine spontaneity is not really possible or desirable so long as printed scores of great works exist. All modern musicians are, for better or worse, prisoners of Gutenberg.

There is no divining-rod whose dip shall tell us at twenty what we shall most relish at thirty.

Two things have always been true about human beings. One, the world is always getting better. Two, the people living at that time think it's getting worse.