A woman without a man cannot meet a man, any man, of any age, without thinking, even if it's for a half-second, 'Perhaps this is THE man.

Bed is the best place for reading, thinking, or doing nothing.

We always seem to be surprised by events, especially by catastrophes, but also by wonderful events. Look at 1990, the year that the Soviet Union collapsed and apartheid in South Africa collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down. I don't know anyone who foresaw those events. It seems to me that as a species we are constantly trying to adapt ourselves to the unexpected. In the meantime, we talk as if we are in control, and we're not. This seems to me to be the truth about the twentieth century.

Borrowing is not much better than begging; just as lending with interest is not much better than stealing.

With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all - can tell you what to read and when and how.

The older I get the more secrets I have, never to be revealed and this, I know, is a common condition of people my age. and why all this emphasis on kissing and telling? Kisses are the least of it.

there are two kinds of humanity, those who dream and those who don't, and both tend to despise, or to tolerate, the other.