“I can’t talk you in terms of time –your time and my time are different”

In our hearts there is a ruthless dictator, ready to contemplate the misery of a thousand strangers if it will ensure the happiness of the few we love.

Every monologue sooner or later becomes a discussion.

Reality in our century is not something to be faced.

It is always of interest to know what strikes another human being as remarkable.

Sweet are the thoughts that savor of content: the quiet mind is richer than a crown.

The truth has never been of any real value to any human being – it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.

Despair is the price one pays for setting himself an impossible aim.

There’s a virtue in slowness, which we have lost.

We are all of us resigned to death: it’s life we aren’t resigned to.

Sometimes I see myself reflected too closely in other men for comfort, and then I have an enormous wish to believe in the saints, in heroic virtue.

Sooner or later; one has to take sides. If one is to remain human.

It is a great danger for everyone when what is shocking changes.

Destruction after all is a form of creation.

An autobiography is only ‘a sort of life’ – it may contain less errors of fact than a biography, but it is of necessity even more selective: it begins later and it ends prematurely.

Friendship is something in the soul. It is a thing one feels. It is not a return for something.

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in…We should be thankful we cannot see the horrors and degradations lying around our childhood, in cupboards and bookshelves, everywhere.

We are no different – we go back to anyone just to have something to do.

We admit as many genera as there are different groups of natural species of which the fructification has the same structure.

If you have a clear idea of a soul, you will have a clear idea of a form; for it is of the same genus, though a different species.

I wonder how different the world would be if we all said what we meant and meant what we said? – speak up.

My experience of singing, as an actor, was that there’s a different creative feeling of freedom. The acting thing is a bit more defined and cerebral. I can see why people would want to cross over. If you have so much freedom on stage then perhaps you want to be confined a bit, and vice versa.

People aren’t quite sure what it means when a book is a Booker Prize winner. They’re not quite sure what is being recommended, what literary values it stands for, because every year it stands for something different.

My heart beats differently for you.

Be in control. Know who you are. And don’t try to be different just to be different.