By no amount of agile exercising of a wistful imagination could my mother have been called lenient. Generous she was; indulgent never. Kind, yes, permissive, never. In her world, people she accepted paddled their own canoes, pulled their own weight, put their own shoulders to their own plows and pushed like hell.

Tragedy, no matter how sad, becomes boring to those not caught in its addictive caress.

There's a place in you that you must keep inviolate. You must keep it pristine. Clean. So that nobody has a right to curse you or treat you badly. Nobody. No mother, father, no wife, no husband, no­­­-nobody. You have to have a place where you say: 'Stop it. Back up. Don't you know I'm a child of God?

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

People feel guilty. And guilt is stymieing. Guilt immobilizes. Guilt closes the air ducts and the veins, and makes people ignorant.

In all my work, I try to say - 'You may be given a load of sour lemons, why not try to make a dozen lemon meringue pies?'

In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.