There was a certain usefulness in having a husband whom most people could barely tolerate: it deflected envy, for one thing.

Every profession is an island whose inhabitants earn a precarious living by taking in each other’s washing.

Mostly, what people mean by love is laziness.

Very happy or unhappy, people disappear.

Just about the worst thing an artist can do is to try and be a nice person.

Hatred bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Human nature, though being the product of historical evolution, has certain inherent mechanisms and laws, to discover which is the task of psychology.

Industry and determination, Mister Kettle, can transform the difficult into the routine, " Grimm said.

Speed provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.

Sometimes it gets talked about as if life is all about the individual, and I don't think it is. I'm really interested in what writing can contribute to a kind of cultural intelligence.

Black culture is a fight. We want to hold on to what we are, but sometimes the things that we are can be totally negative. You have to think: can't we try something new and not be seen as suspect?

Alphas simply did not grovel; arrogance was part of the job description.

God loves us all, wants us all to share his kingdom, has a role for us all.

California is a place in which a boom mentality and a sense of Chekhovian loss meet in uneasy suspension.

The most successful ideological effects are those which have no need for words, and ask no more than complicitous silence.

I knew you'd come,Claire.I knew you would.Dear God,you took your time.