“Take by surprise and the world gives up resistance.”

Deliberate cruelty is not forgiveable. It is the most unforgiveable thing in my opinion, and the one thing in which I have never, ever been guilty.

What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it’s curved like a road through mountains.

All creative work, all life in a sense, is a cri de coeur.

Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace.

If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.

We are all of us born, live and die in the shadow of a giant question mark that refers to three questions: Where do we come from? Why? And where, oh where, are we going!

I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person.

He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.

Enthusiasm is the most important thing in life.

When you’re going through a period of unhappiness, a broken love affair, the death of someone you love, or some other disorder in your life, then you have no refuge but writing.

I can’t stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.

Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.

That time is short and it doesn’t return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, and the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition.

And it was about then, about that time, that I began to find life unsatisfactory as an explanation of itself and was forced to adopt the method of the artist of not explaining but putting the blocks together in some other way that seems more significant to him. Which is a rather fancy way of saying I started writing.

The most dangerous word in any human tongue is the word for brother. It’s inflammatory.

The only unforgivable sin is deliberate cruelty.

Every Christmas Eve, the elves will come and give us a new pair of pajamas.

God looks at the anxious and says, I tore my Son to shreds for you, and you’re afraid I will not give you what you need?

I can’t answer either question. But the look she gives me reminds me of the look in the attack dog’s eyes in the aptitude test – a vicious, predatory stare. She wants to rip me to pieces. I can’t lie down in submission now. I have become an attack dog too.

Your trouble’s easy borne when everybody gives it a lift for you.

Does patch have a restraining order against him?’ he read. ‘is patch a felon?’ ‘give-me-that!’ i hissed furiously. Patch gave a soft laugh, and i knew he’d seen the next question. ‘does patch have a girlfriend?

I need not instruct you of my belief: Time gives all and takes all away ; everything changes but nothing perishes ;

Any coward can fight a battle when he’s sure of winning; but give me the man who has the pluck to fight when he’s sure of losing.

We must give Italians a sense of race.