My life is short. I can't listen to banality.

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing - which is never an easy thing to do.

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

One isn’t born one’s self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people’s ideas – and you have to work through it all.

Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision.

It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling.

The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.

Home is, I suppose just a child's idea. A house at night, and a lamp in the house. A place to feel safe.

One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.

The world is always in movement.

All the details of the life and the quirks and the friendships can be laid out for us, but the mystery of the writing will remain. No amount of documentation, however fascinating, can take us there.

A joyful heart is an endless flowing stream.

They had nothing in common but the English language, and tried by its help to express what neither of them understood.

I met a woman who told me she wasn't attracted to Asians. No worries, I said. I'm not attracted to racists.

For a girl like me, I understand because working out can get really boring. Doing the same exact routine every day gets old, and you need something new and fresh to inspire you.

Even before I started photography, I began to see that there was a disjunction between available languages and reality.

Instill respect for teachers.

Old age likes indecency. It's a sign of life.

If you procrastinate when faced with a big difficult problem... break the problem into parts, and handle one part at a time.

I feel like you only have so much time to make stuff. I'm definitely aware of that. I'm also excited about it.

"Lambe them, lads! lambe them!" a cant phrase of the time derived from the fate of Dr. Lambe, an astrologer and quack, who was knocked on the head by the rabble in Charles the First's time.