“The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.”

Like the measles, love is most dangerous when it comes late in life.

She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes.

Come what may, I have been blest.

What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.

The first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism.

The tiger will himself intervene in the discussion, in a manner which will be in every sense conclusive.

The devil was the first democrat

Of religion I know nothing — at least, in its favor.

This is to be mortal, And seek the things beyond mortality.

Damn description, it is always disgusting.

The best prophet of the future is the past.

I deny nothing, but doubt everything.

Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach Who please, the more because they preach in vain

Friendship may, and often does, grow into love, but love never subsides into friendship.

Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.

I learned to love despair.

And they really did not want Willie or me, either one, to “have a hit record. They wanted the money, but they didn’t want us to be the ones.

There is only one reality, but there are many ways that reality can be interpreted.

You transition as a mother from literally just pulling a booger out of that person’s nose whenever you see one until at some point they assert: “No, I’m a person. You can’t fix my underpants on the subway.”

One of the simple but genuine pleasures in life is getting up in the morning and hurrying to a mousetrap you set the night before.

Men who can succeed in deceiving no one else, will succeed at last in deceiving themselves.

One must do violence to the object of one’s desire; when it surrenders, the pleasure is greater.

When one is striding bravely into the future one cannot watch one’s footing.

I did not know then that this is what life is – just when you master the geometry of one world, it slips away, and suddenly again, you’re swarmed by strange shapes and impossible angles.