We are all tourists in history, and irony is what we win in wars.

Aphorisms are bad for novels. They stick in the reader's teeth.

The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait.

To be misunderstood can be the writer's punishment for having disturbed the reader's peace. The greater the disturbance, the greater the possibility of misunderstanding.

If a book is really good, it deserves to be read again, and if it's great, it should be read at least three times.

In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people's lives.

Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city.

The first divorce in the world may have been a tragedy, but the hundred-millionth is not necessarily one.

A bookcase is as good as a view, as much of a panorama as the sight of a city or a river. There are dawns and sunsets in books - storms and zephyrs.

There are few things more subtly distressing than an inappropriate gift from someone close to you.

The tension between 'yes' and no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot,' makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self.

If a flower can flourish in the desert, you can flourish anywhere.

I am living while I am living.

In this world, there was nothing scarier than trusting someone. But there was also nothing more rewarding.

If you want to improve your self-worth, stop giving other people the calculator.

Wrinkles should only indicate where smiles have been.

The flame of anger, bright and brief, sharpens the barb of love.

Partly I resented being perceived as weak because I was a girl.

Too often we judge people based on our own backgrounds and experiences, but when you understand people's stories, it's easier to understand their demeanor.

What's important now? - To evaluate the past, focus on the future, and tell you what you have to do in the present

There is no shadow of protection to be had by sheltering behind the slender stockades of visionary speculation, or by hiding behind the wagon-wheels of pacific theories.