Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.

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.

If you wouldn't live long, live well; for folly and wickedness shorten life.

Whether it's a blatant homage or unconscious mimicry, the Rolling Stones have permanently, indelibly influenced how rock stars look and behave.

SAGE. A wise and Holy man who died a long time ago. No one modern qualifies.

I would say that working with Ridley Scott makes the process of directing much more terrifying.

I convinced her that her first loyalty isn't to other people, but to her own feelings.

It is with regret that I pronounce the fatal truth: Louis ought to perish rather than a hundred thousand virtuous citizens; Louis must die that the country may live

The main thing that I want to say is that I don't think women are at their most beautiful in their adolescence or in their early 20s.

I feel like I'm always having to justify why I haven't kept in touch with anyone from the old days in Stoke-on-Trent, but I'm like that with anybody. I don't let anybody in. I just rely on myself.

Where are the people who don't have goals headed? Those 97 per cent end up working for the three percent.

Life is a state of constant radiation and absorption; to exist is to radiate; to exist is to be the recipient of radiations.