“Don’t ye know that ev’ry Soul on Earth feels itself to be an Orphan?”

As long as I’m facing the right direction, it doesn’t matter the size of my steps.

People always think that history proceeds in a straight line. It doesn’t. Social attitudes don’t change in a straight line.

I do believe that in every age there are people whose consciousness transcends their own time and that these people, whether fictional or historical, are those with whom we most closely identify and those about whom we most enjoy reading.

The parity of women’s health. It’s very depressing to think that you win these rights, but then you have to win them again, and again, and again, and fight the same battles over and over.

Life is full of excuses to feel pain, excuses not to live, excuses, excuses, excuses.

Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.

Souls have neither Sex nor Colour.

Courage is the only Magic worth having.

Images are … a kind of emotional shorthand.

Is perception equivalent to existence?

Is a currency worth anything if no one wants it? We used to buy shoes in Italy. Remember?

It takes courage to lead a life. Any life.

Do all women have to keep silent for men to speak? Do all women have to be legless for men to walk?

Breast-feeding may succumb to the bottle; cuddling, fondling, and paediatric visits may also be done by fathers…but when a child needs a mother to talk to, nobody else but a mother will do.

As women got little crumbs of power, men began to act paranoid – as if we’d disabled them utterly.

Loving someone is a loss of freedom – but one doesn’t think of it as loss because one gains so much else.

You have the ball in your hand every time when you’re a quarterback. Whether you’re handing it off or throwing to somebody, I think that’s extremely important.

In Manhattan, every flat surface is a potential stage and every inattentive waiter an unemployed, possibly unemployable, actor.

Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.

My first child is going to be the oldest sibling to the next kid, and that may change with each and every year. I’m looking forward to how one baby influences the other, and to my family as a whole, to every single chapter.

I have a saying. ‘Never judge a book by its cover’. I say that because I don’t even know who Ozzy is. I wake up a new person every day.

Ever since third grade, I had a notebook and was putting together words just for fun.

You must refuse every- thing that is not pure and holy. God wants you pure in heart. He wants you to have an intense desire after holiness…

In every kid’s life, there’s about three or four years when you’re at liberty, and after that, you have to get a job because you’re getting married or you have to support your parents or whatever it is.