I did not grow up in poverty. But I did grow up with a poor boy's sense of longing, in my case not for what my family had never had, but for what we had had and lost.

It is remarkable indeed how we human beings are capable of delighting in the mating call of a flower while we are surrounded by the charred carcasses of our fellow animals.

Our relationship could now thrive only in my head, and to discuss it with a mother intent—admittedly in my own best interest—on challenging it with reality might do it irreparable harm.

...status, as in any traditional, class-conscious society, declines more slowly than wealth.

one's rules of propriety make one thirst for the improper.

Live out your life in truth and justice, tolerant of those who are neither true nor just.

They do everything to make you fail

I'd like to be for cinema what Shakespeare was for theatre, Marx for politics and Freud for psychology: someone after whom nothing is as it used to be.

Let everyone see the blood,' he said. 'Don't clean it up. That's the only way people remember.'... I could see the blood inside my head. It was with me forever, whether or not I wanted to forget.

It was a perfect night for a train. The occasional whistle told Louis of all the farewells he had ever known.

Great Britain would spend her last guinea to keep a navy superior to that of the United States or any other power.

I'm convinced there's a small room in the attic of the Foreign Office where future diplomats are taught to stammer.

No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

Mariah Carey is kinda scary.

The attitude of saints toward their possessions most assuredly signifies whether they continue to preserve their self life or whether they have consigned it to death.