Whatever we succeed in doing is a transformation of something we have failed to do. Thus, when we fail, it is only because we have given up.

Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.

Man's great misfortune is that he has no organ, no kind of eyelid or brake, to mask or block a thought, or all thought, when he wants to.

War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre each other.

A poem is never finished, only abandoned.

Nothing beautiful can be summarized.

The universe is built on a plan the profound symmetry of which is somehow present in the inner structure of our intellect.

A great man is one who leaves others at a loss after he is gone.

Love is being stupid together.

The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.

Let us enrich ourselves with our mutual differences.

What was it Isak Dinesen had said about salt as a cure? Tears, sweat, or the sea. She could use a cure.

I've often wished when I started a book I knew what was going to happen. I talked to writers who write 80-page outlines, and I'm just in awe of that.

We cannot hope to either understand or to manage the carbon in the atmosphere unless we understand and manage the trees and the soil too.

What kind of leader sends congressmen out on a kamikaze mission in an election year and right before a recess? The kind of leader whose followers are diminishing in number.

Be awfully nice to them going up, because you're gonna meet them all coming down.

I was obliged to take tough, painful and bold decisions to ensure a manageable tomorrow.

Didier Drogba and Samuel Eto'o, two fantastic African footballers. So successful. And very nice characters as well. I got the luck to know them personally. They helped me a lot.

Wisdom is a blaze, kindled by a leaping spark.

I don't think we live in a place where we don't want people to be able to say when they disagree with the president or incoming administration.

When I started as a writer, I knew nothing about publishing-nothing about anything!