“Books are the mirrors of the soul.”

For this moment, this one moment, we are together. I press you to me. Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. I sob, I sob.

There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.

But beauty must be broken daily to remain beautiful.

The depths of the sea are only water after all.

We can best help you to prevent war not by repeating your words and following your methods but by finding new words and creating new methods.

Illness is a part of every human being’s experience. It enhances our perceptions and reduces self-consciousness. It is the great confessional; things are said, truths are blurted out which health conceals.

There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, ‘Consume me

It might be possible that the world itself is without meaning.

Until we can comprehend the beguiling beauty of a single flower, we are woefully unable to grasp the meaning and potential of life itself.

To make ideas effective, we must be able to fire them off. We must put them into action.

I feel so intensely the delights of shutting oneself up in a little world of one’s own, with pictures and music and everything beautiful.

Why are women so much more interesting to men than men are to women?

A feminist is any woman who tells the truth about her life.

As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.

A veil of insanity everywhere: Oh why I was born in this age? It is a terrible age.

All extremes of feeling are allied with madness.

I was never much of a reader when I was a boy. Books bored me. I liked action. But I spent a lot of time thinking about things. I’d imagine all kinds of situations and how I would handle them.

What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.

I thought I’d begin by reading a poem by Shakespeare, but then I thought, why should I? He never reads any of mine.

We are of opinion that instead of letting books grow moldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by being read.

I don’t shoot people with Korans. I’d like to, but I don’t.

Other people are talking about writing books about my life, or about some of the things I’ve done. I find it strange, but I also feel it’s my life and my story, and I guess I better be the one to get it on paper the way it actually happened.

Impossible is the word for fools in my dictionary.

Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.