I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you -- it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists.

I wondered how long it took for a baby to become yours, for familiarity to set in. Maybe as long as it took a new car to lose that scent, or a brand-new house to gather dust. Maybe that was the process more commonly described as bonding: the act of learning your child as well as you know yourself.

Jodi Picoult

I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me that trouble of liking them.

Jane Austen

The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are alarmed at this world, because this world is a very alarming place. They dislike being alone because it is verily and indeed an awful idea to be alone. Barbarians fear the unknown for the same reason that Agnostics worship it --because it is a fact.

G. K. Chesterton

I think it's almost an indulgence to focus on the dark side of things. And as you get older, you want to focus on the positive.

Rob Brydon

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; its when you had everything to do, and you've done it.

Margaret Thatcher

If we could but paint with the hand what we see with the eye.

Honore de Balzac

The home should be the treasure chest of living.

Le Corbusier

I think that economic patriotism is the very foundation of a European vision.

Dominique de Villepin

The puritan through life's sweet garden goes to pluck the thorn and cast away the rose.

Kenneth Hare

Maybe when I stop making movies, I'll understand my work better.

Dario Argento

Religion is not a popular error; it is a great instinctive truth, sensed by the people, expressed by the people.

Ernest Renan

The Bible makes it clear that every time that there is a story of faith, it is completely original. God's creative genius is endless.

Eugene H. Peterson