The only people who claim that money is not important are people who have enough money so that they are relieved of the ugly burden of thinking about it.

Henry James's later works would have been better had he resisted that curious sort of self-indulgence, dictating to a secretary. The roaming garrulousness of ordinary speech is usually corrected when it's transcribed into written prose.

It is only through disruptions and confusion that we grow, jarred out of ourselves by the collision of someone else's private world with our own.

Loneliness is like starvation: you don't realize how hungry you are until you begin to eat.

There is the expectation that a younger generation has the opportunity to redeem the crimes and failings of their elders and would have the strength and idealism to do so.

I think whenever we think of our hometowns, we tend to think of very specific people: with whom you rode on the school bus, who was your next door neighbor you were playing with, who your girlfriend was. It's always something very specific.

Shakespeare would seem to have been a person for whom the human voice/personality in all its splendid idiosyncrasy was absolutely enthralling.