Charm is often despised but I can never see why. No one has it who isn't capable of genuinely liking others, at least at the actual moment of meeting and speaking. Charm is always genuine; it may be superficial but it isn't false.

Childhood is the one prison from which there's no escape, the one sentence from which there's no appeal. We all serve our time.

For me, the dead remain dead. If I couldn't believe that, I don't think I could go on living.

I believe that political correctness can be a form of linguistic fascism, and it sends shivers down the spine of my generation who went to war against fascism.

The tragedy of loss is not that we grieve, but that we cease to grieve, and then perhaps the dead are dead at last.

Charm is always genuine; it may be superficial but it isn't false.

Can we ever break free of the devices and desires of our own hearts? Might not our conscience be telling us what we most want to hear?