In a country that doesn't discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainly more achievable.

You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her.

Time itself made all things rare.

Funny how the nature of a normal day is the first memory to fade.

Not that happiness is dull. Only that it doesn't tell well. And of our consuming diversions as we age is to recite, not only to others but to ourselves, our own story.

...whenever a woman describes a man as sweet, the dalliance is doomed.

Though surely to avoid attachments for fear of loss is to avoid life.

I thought at the time that I couldn't be horrified anymore, or wounded. I suppose that's a common conceit, that you've already been so damaged that damage itself, in its totality, makes you safe.

I was mortified by the prospect of becoming hopelessly trapped in someone else's story.

My mind is huge with little stories that I never told you.

A carpet of despair which lay underneath the levels of fury.

Lesson number one, she muttered, love is beyond your grasp. Lesson two: nowhere is it written that you're guaranteed fairness. And three: there's only right and wrong.

People can look to me as a teacher, but I consider myself a student of hip-hop.

Oh! what a luxury it is to weep, / And find in tears a sad relief!

A good thing to live by is to go after what truly interests you.

The music of this opera (Madame Butterfly) was dictated to me by God. I was merely instrumental in getting it on paper and communicating it to the public.

There is nothing the state can do, and which society needs done, that cannot be done far better by the market.

Avoid 'shoulding' on others and yourself!

Every single one of the guys that I've written songs about has been tracked down on MySpace by my fans.

When we hold back out of laziness, that is when we tie ourselves into knots of boredom.

It is wonderful what great strides can be made when there is a resolute purpose behind them.