“The way in which each human infant is transformed into the finished adult, into the complicated individual version of his city and his century is one of the most fascinating studies open to the curious minded.”

The assumption that men were created equal, with an equal ability to make an effort and win an earthly reward, although denied every day by experience, is maintained every day by our folklore and our daydreams.

No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded.

A woman, even a brilliant woman, must have two qualities in order to fulfill her promise: more energy than mere mortals, and the ability to outwit her culture.

And when our baby stirs and struggles to be born it compels humility: what we began is now its own.

Laughter is man’s most distinctive emotional expression. Man shares the capacity for love and hate, anger and fear, loyalty and grief, with other living creatures. But humour, which has an intellectual as well as an emotional element belongs to man

Life in the twentieth century is like a parachute jump: you have to get it right the first time.

Once any group in society stands in a relatively deprived position in relation to other groups, it is genuinely deprived.

There is no hierarchy of values by which one culture has the right to insist on all its own values and deny those of another.

The anonymity of the city is one of its strengths as well as – carried too far – one of its weaknesses.

Pigs and cows and chickens and people are all competing for grain.

Sister is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship.

There is no greater power in the world than the zest of a postmenopausal woman.

I think rigid heterosexuality is a perversion of nature.

What people say, what people do, and what they say they do are entirely different things.

Jealousy is not a barometer by which the depth of love can be read. It merely records the degree of the lover’s insecurity.

‎ When a person is born we rejoice, and when they’re married we jubilate, but when they die we try to pretend nothing has happened.

I am a complicated woman and I know it.

Problems in science are sometimes made easier by adding complications.

People want to psychoanalyze me, but the fact is, I’m not that complicated. I’m pretty straightforward. And I’m not all that self-reflective, because I tend to be a doer.

Making a film is like putting out a fire with sieve. There are so many elements, and it gets so complicated.

If anyone tries to complicate your life, turn and walk away from them.

Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.

When everything in life gets so complicated it only takes a day to change it.

Avoidance. Probably the worst dance. – Complicated.