The kind of power mothers have is enormous. Take the skyline of Istanbul - enormous breasts, pathetic little willies, a final revenge on Islam. I was so scared I had to crouch in the bottom of the boat when I saw it.

I should have liked to have had him beside me in a glass coffin, so that I could watch him all the time and he would not have been able to get away from me.

A fairy tale is the kind of story in which one king goes to another king to borrow a cup of sugar

For all cats have this particularity, each and every one, from the meanest alley sneaker to the proudest, whitest she that ever graced a pontiff's pillow — we have our smiles, as it were, painted on. Those small, cool, quite Mona Lisa smiles that smile we must, no matter whether it's been fun or it's been not. So all cats have a politician's air; we smile and smile and so they think we're villains

Love is desire sustained by unfulfilment.

In a secular age, an authentic miracle must purport to be a hoax, in order to gain credit in the world.

The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown.