A year and a half after the end of the war and the German occupation, Paris was muted and looked bruised and forlorn. Everywhere I went, I sensed the tracks of the wolf that had tried to devour the city. But Paris proved inedible, as it had been ever since its tribal beginnings on an island in the Seine, the Ile de la Cité.

I have a painter's memory. I can remember things from my childhood which were so powerfully imprinted on me, the whole scene comes back.

Teachers inspire the smallest hearts to grow big enough to change the world.

It was hard to reassure grown-ups when you weren't certain yourself what you were feeling and thinking—when thoughts dissolved before you could name them.

My first job was working in a dress shop in Los Angeles in 1940, for $7 a week.

Words are nets through which all truth escapes.

The minute you become conscious that you are doing good, that's the minute you have to stop because from then on it's wrong.