“At sixty-three years of age, less a quarter, one still has plans.”

A few days later, I found my mother beneath the tree, motionless with excitement, her head turned toward the heavens in which she would allow human religions no place.

I did not look for her, because I was afraid of dispelling the mystery we attach to people whom we know only casually.

If we want to be sincere, we must admit that there is a well-nourished love and an ill-nourished love. And the rest is literature.

The only virtue on which I pride myself is my self-doubt; when a writer loses her self-doubt, the time has come to lay aside her pen.

Perhaps the only misplaced curiosity is that which persists in trying to find out here, on this side of death, what lies beyond the grave.

To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.

There is no need to waste pity on young girls who are having their moments of disillusionment, for in another moment they will recover their illusion.

By means of an image we are often able to hold on to our lost belongings. But it is the desperateness of losing which picks the flowers of memory, binds the bouquet.

A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts.

So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days.

You don’t think before you do something foolish. You do your thinking afterwards.

I believe there are more urgent and honorable occupations than the incomparable waste of time we call suffering.

Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.

That lovely voice; how I should weep for joy if I could hear it now!

I am going away with him to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name, and where I shall be born again with a new face and an untried heart.

No one asked you to be happy. Get to work.

You’ve got to be a Lakers fan growing up in L.A. with all these championships.

It’s easy when you grow up in fear to act out of fear. I don’t want to embrace that fear; I prefer to be kind.

No matter where you are or where you grow up, you always go through the same awkward moments of being a teenager and growing up and trying to figure out who you are.

I was never part of that cliquey girl drama. Most of my friends were guys growing up, so I was never part of that whole toxic energy. It seemed like way too much hassle.

The interesting thing about the Beatles was: The music was one thing, but we kind of symbolized a certain kind of freedom at a time when people of our generation were just growing up and just becoming adults.

Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?

I wasn’t really a big comic book guy, growing up. I watched cartoons, but the choices were a whole heck of a lot slimmer.

Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?