the final lesson of learning to be independent - widowhood ... is the hardest lesson of all.

The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.

It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded.

By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.

The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea.

Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn't seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces.

I feel we are all islands - in a common sea.

A simple enough pleasure, surely, to have breakfast alone with one's husband, but how seldom married people in the midst of life achieve it.

My passport photo is one of the most remarkable photographs I have ever seen- no retouching, no shadows, no flattery-just stark me.

When I cannot write a poem, I bake biscuits and feel just as pleased.

Don't wish me happiness - I don't expect to be happy it's gotten beyond that, somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor - I will need them all.

Promise yourself that you will not leave this world before accomplishing what is important to you and what matters for the world.

Destiny is desire meeting opportunity. You become who you are driven to be.

Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas.

If it comes out sounding like Dixieland jazz or classical or punk or rock or even slightly metal, that's because that's where I'm going to find inspiration.

President Obama is the least transparent president in the history of this country.

It's what I do well - I write about things that make people uncomfortable. That's probably the only thing I do better than my peers.

I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear, or anything but that vain animal who is so proud of being rational.

A better educated electorate might change the reason many persons vote.

I'd moved to L.A. with my mother when I was 17 or 18. She loved show business and I was young enough that I had no idea what I wanted to do.

People are sophisticated viewers, as evidenced by the risks that are taken in cable television, and I think network has to do the same thing.