Somerset Maugham ... wrote somewhere that "Nobody is any better than he ought to be."... I carried it along with me as a working philosophy, but I suppose that finally I would have to take exception to the thought ... or else the universe is just an elaborate clock.

There are two kinds of brave men: those who are brave by the grace of nature, and those who are brave by an act of will.

Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.

With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists the small trumpet of your defiance.

There is nothing safe about sex. There never will be.

The difference between writing a book and being on television is the difference between conceiving a child and having a baby made in a test tube.

You have the right to speak your mind.