You're a library of me.

You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

Time is how you spend your love.

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.

Don't confuse honours with achievement.

Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.

Some people don't want to rock the boat and risk being cut. They don't want to be seen as a nuisance. They say, "If I'm cut, I won't be able to make a change at all."

The appearances of goodness and merit often meet with a greater reward from the world than goodness and merit themselves.

The dark grave, which knows all secrets, can alone reclaim the fatal doubt once cast on a woman's name.

How slow life is, how violent hope is.

Happiness doesn't come from big pieces of great success, but from small advantages hammered out day by day.

Hope comes as a surprise, at several levels at once.

My soul is an empty carousel at sunset.

What you should want from life is an arena big enough to express your talents and gifts.

Our world is fast succumbing to the activities of men and women who would stake the future of our species on beliefs that should not survive an elementary school education.

Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators.