Yet I will make you all love me and I will punish myself to spite your love.

I wrote a novel called "Blonde," which is about Norma Jean Baker, who becomes Marilyn Monroe, which I called a fictitious biography. That uses the material as if it were myth - that Marilyn Monroe is like this mythical figure in our culture.

Life is like boxing in many unsettling respects. But boxing is only like boxing.

the music was always in the background, like music at a church service; it was something to depend upon.

Betrayal is the deepest wound. Betrayal is what remains of love, when love has gone.

If Shakespeare's great plays are variants of stories, even novels, you can see how each character is telling his story from his perspective; each is vying with the others for dominance, but in the end, in tragedy, most of these voices will die, to be replaced by the yet more vigorous voice of a younger generation.

It's where we go, and what we do when we get there, that tells us who we really are.