Of the widow's countless death-duties there is really just one that matters: on the first anniversary of her husband's death the widow should think I kept myself alive.

Memory blurs, that's the point. If memory didn't blur you wouldn't have the fool's courage to do things again, again, again, that tear you apart.

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.

I never change, I simply become more myself.

How lovely this world is, really: one simply has to look.

Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality.

Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.

Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light.

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be

Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!

I've survived revolution, war, and over a decade on this continent, " the Burgrave reflected. "But by all the ghosts of the hundred emperors, I think fatherhood will finally do me in.

You have to take what you can get out of the music. It's different for everyone, but you have to pay attention and appreciate each piece in order for it to speak to you.

The way to find justice is to deal fairly with other people and not worry about how they deal with you.

There is no excitement anywhere in the world short of war to match the excitement of the American presidential campaign.

When I first came into parliament, there was, on average, a by-election every three months - due not to MPs bailing out, but because of the death rate.

We've spent now about 150 years trying to convince ourselves that photographs are reliable evidence, some unimpeachable slice of the real world. That was a myth from the very beginning.

in the day after humans disappear, nature takes over and immediately begins cleaning house - our houses.

Bush-McCain stategy in Iraq is policy to stay, not to win.

Do not allow people to dim your shine because they are blinded. Tell them to put on some sunglasses because we were born this way.

The American insanity for Loving Everybody is ruining my good temper and delivering my stomach to enormous bouts with acidity.