Reason enables us to get around in the world of ideas, but cannot prescribe our thoughts.

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.

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

And the seriousness with which the other party takes my words always raises the doubt whether I have taken them seriously enough myself.

I did it at night because I loved it. I never did it to make money, as a job. I just did it because I had to.

Ever a glutton, at another's cost, But in whose kitchen dwells perpetual frost.

We have become more and more not a nation of athletes but a nation of spectators.

The Catholic hierarchy has become more conservative. What we don't know is whether [Catholic voters] will become increasingly conservative, or .. stay swing voters.

It is much easier to repent of sins that we have committed than to repent of those that we intend to commit.

The longer the trial to which God subjects you, the greater the goodness in comforting you during the time of trial and in the exaltation after the combat.

I get offered to do stuff where the money's nice but it's not something I want to do - I get offered a lot of commercials too.