The people of the United States are one of the people I most admire in the world. The only thing I don't understand is why a country that manages to do so well cannot do better in choosing its president.

Love becomes greater and nobler in calamity.

She would defend herself, saying that love, no matter what else it might be, was a natural talent. She would say: You are either born knowing how, or you never know.

I can't think of any one film that improved on a good novel, but I can think of many good films that came from very bad novels.

They looked like two children," she told me. And that thought frightened her, because she'd always felt that only children are capable of everything.

...and the cries of the birds and the uproar of the monkeys became more and more remote, and the world became eternally sad. The men on the expedition felt overwhelmed by their most ancient memories in that paradise of dampness and silence, going back to before original sin, as their boots sank into pools of steaming oil and their machetes destroyed bloody lilies and golden salamanders.

A man should have two wives: one to love and one to sew on his buttons.