My grandfather had a wonderful funeral... On the buffet table there was a replica of the deceased in potato salad.

What has gotten into you lately? Save a little craziness for menopause!

I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, [and] receives new truth as an angel from Heaven.

It's a wonderful thing to be able to create your own world whenever you want to. Writing is very pleasurable, very seductive, and very therapeutic. Time passes very fast when I'm writing-really fast. I'm puzzling over something, and time just flies by. It's an exhilarating feeling. How bad can it be? It's sitting alone with fictional characters. You're escaping from the world in your own way and that's fine. Why not?

Sex and death. Two things that come but once in my lifetime, but at least after death you're not nauseous.

They were doing the Dying Swan at the ballet. And there was a rumor that some bookmarkers had drifted into town from upstate New York and that they had fixed the bullet. There was a lot of money bet on the swan to live.

Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.