Even a small, everyday lie is a clue to the personality and preoccupations of the liar, like a dream or any other confection of the mind, that is half-conscious and half-unconscious, as all creative acts must be.

At twenty your choices are almost unlimited. At fifty you're a prisoner of past decisions. At seventy you have no free will left at all.

what you fear, you invite.

Were modern cities only beautiful after darkness hid everything but their lights?

Other people's children, like other people's love affairs, were so much less interesting than one's own.

Wouldn't it be kinder to say that a lie is a short work of fiction? 'A story' as my daughter says?

money is an acquired taste that grows as it is fed.