The very thing about people that makes the human race interesting is also the thing that makes it so hard to get anything done without the most horrible confusions: no two people think exactly the same way about anything.

I think I've only spent about ten percent of my energies on writing. The other ninety percent went to keeping my head above water.

What we need is endless courage.

Each generation must get on the same old merry-go-round, only disguised in a fresh coat of paint.

You shouldn't side-step suffering if you have to go through it to get where you're going.

There has been a marvelous joyous carnival of mourning for Edith Piaf and Jean Coctaeau, and it was real! They died as they had lived, with style and grace and their proper eccentricity; and Paris loves anybody who can live anarchically and be delightful entertainment at the same time. So do I.

Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, things that seem to be irreconcilable, and put them together in a frame to give them some kind of shape and meaning.