Lead the reader toward the thought, then stop a little short.

Pain narrows consciousness; pleasure blurs it.

When Medusa looks in the mirror, she sees the Lady of Sorrows.

My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.

Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism, not a return to the hedonism of youth

The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path.

Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.

The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.

'Be faithful to your roots' is the liberal version of 'Stay in your ghetto.'

Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.

Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.

From New Year's Eve through the third of January, the streets of Tokyo grew quiet, as if all the people had disappeared.

Worry is evidence of an ill-controlled brain it is merely a stupid waste of time in unpleasantness.

When people disagree with you, what you ultimately have to do is persuade people to agree with you - period.

This is a strange, little, complacent country [Switzerland], in many ways a USA in miniature but of course nearer the center of disturbance!

I had progressed on stage as a performer, but I hadn't progressed as a human being.

As a younger man I wrote for eight years without ever earning a nickel which is a long apprenticeship, but in that time I learned a lot about my trade.

I'm talking about intellectually and emotionally challenging, but at the same time it's actually not that challenging. So there's this dichotomy.

I am an incredibly impatient person.

Above all, I am motivated by the most mysterious drive we ever experience -that of love - I don't think there's any influence on my life that compares with love.

Genius... means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.