I look at some of the great novelists, and I think the reason they are great is that they're telling the truth. The fact is they're using made-up names, made-up people, made-up places, and made-up times, but they're telling the truth about the human being- what we are capable of, what makes us lose, laugh, weep, fall down, and gnash our teeth and wring our hands and kill each other and love each other.

I'm convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere.

Don't let anybody raise you. You've been raised.

I am convinced that courage is the most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you cannot practice any other virtue consistently. You can be kind for a while; you can be generous for a while; you can be just for a while, or merciful for a while, even loving for a while. But it is only with courage that you can be persistently and insistently kind and generous and fair.

If men are God's gift to women, then God must really love gag gifts.

We are all human; therefore, nothing human can be alien to us.

Don't get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that - if you dare. But get older because it's fun!