The sky, at sunset, looked like a carnivorous flower.

Every hundred feet the world changes

So everything lets us down, including curiosity and honesty and what we love best. Yes, said the voice, but cheer up, it's fun in the end.

Nothing is ever behind us.

Bright colours in the west, giant butterflies dancing as night crept like a cripple toward the east.

Metaphors are our way of losing ourselves in semblances or treading water in a sea of seeming.

…I realized my happiness was artificial. I felt happy because I saw the others were happy and because I knew I should feel happy, but I wasn't really happy.

For her, reading was directly linked to pleasure, not to knowledge or enigmas or constructions or verbal labyrinths…

You have to listen to women. You should never ignore a woman's fears.

His words saddened them greatly, though they couldn't say why.

When you know something, you know it, and when you don't, you'd better learn. And in the meantime, you should keep quiet, or at least speak only when what you say will advance the learning process.

Every devil used to be an angel

Economics is a highly sophisticated field of thought that is superb at explaining to policymakers precisely why the choices they made in the past were wrong. About the future, not so much.

I have a theory about Ireland, being at the edge of Europe. For 1,000 years, people didnt know what was beyond. But we thought about it - a lot. And that beyond became internalized in our psyche.

He's an innocent in a lot of ways. He's a very simple person who really doesn't have the resources or the strength, ultimately, to handle the situation.

Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable.

Don’t ever make the mistake of telling God that you have nothing to offer. That simply is not true. God does not create any junk.

Martin Williams persistently gets at essences, and that is why he has contributed so much to the very small body of authentic jazz criticism.

I played ten injury-free years between the ages of 12 and 22. Then, suddenly, it seemed like I was allergic to the twentieth century.

But sometimes the women writers will pitch something and I'll hear it, but the men will keep talking.

For I am nothing if not critical.