It shows considerable wisdom to know what you want in life and then to direct all your energies towards getting it.

I learned early and at that kitchen table that there are ways of avoiding, without guilt, the commitments of love.

In youth we take egregious risks because death has no reality for us. Youth goes caparisoned in immortality. It is only in middle age that we are shadowed by the awareness of the transitoriness of life.

It's possible to fight intolerance, stupidity and fanaticism when they come separately. When you get all three together it's probably wiser to get out, if only to preserve your sanity.

If from infancy you treat children as gods, they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.

A politician is required to listen to humbug, talk humbug, condone humbug. The most we can hope for is that we don't actually believe it.

Perhaps it's only when people are dead that we can safely show how much we cared about them. We know that it's too late then for them to do anything about it.