There were periods of my life when a lot of people didn't believe in me. I still had faith in myself. I really had to ask myself life questions. Where do I see myself in five years? Create a ladder for yourself, and walk up the steps. Climb that ladder.

For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it.

Oscar Wilde

I came to Venice for the first time in 1968 and was lucky enough to make the acquaintanceship, and then the friendship, of two Venetians, Roberta and Franco, who remain my best friends here after almost 50 years.

Donna Leon

I always know exactly where my stories take place, which gives me something certain so I can use my imagination for the other stuff. I worry though, who wants to keep reading stories about Kalamazoo?

Bonnie Jo Campbell

A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect.

Charles Lamb

And these two elements are at odds with one another because Freud is utterly adversary to almost all the ways of structuring the human experience found in Western religions. No Western religion can countenance Freud's view of man.

Chaim Potok

I wanted to write and direct movies and not be forced to adapt them from a bestselling book.

Francis Ford Coppola

Sometimes I'm so sweet even I can't stand it.

Julie Andrews

A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.

Samuel Butler

Where a blood relation sobs, an intimate friend should choke up, a distant acquaintance should sigh, a stranger should merely fumble sympathetically with his handkerchief.

Mark Twain

What I miss today more than anything else - I don't go to church as much anymore - but that old-time religion, that old singing, that old praying which I love so much. That is the great strength of my being, of my writing.

Ernest Gaines

By the time a partnership dissolves, it has dissolved.

John Updike

To really know someone is to have loved and hated him in turn.

Marcel Jouhandeau