“I wasn’t saying whatever they’re saying I was saying. I’m sorry I said it really. I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. I apologize if that will make you happy. I still don’t know quite what I’ve done. I’ve tried to tell you what I did do but if you want me to apologize, if that will make you happy, then OK, I’m sorry.”

“People do not deserve good writing, they are so pleased with bad.”

“Always mystify, torture, mislead, and surprise the audience as much as possible.”

“If no one knows when a person is going to die, how can we say he died prematurely?”

“The figures looked more or less human. And they were engaged in religion. You could tell by the knives (it’s not murder if you do it for a god).”

“Hello little one. Did you know you’re on private property?””Really? I had no idea.” Meryn fudged. He raised an eyebrow. “The ten foot fence right behind you didn’t give it away?”

“More than anything.” Rob persisted. “You’d crawl on your belly over broken glass for her. Easy.”

“If I gave you a pity position it wouldn’t be in my office.”

“He smiled. “I suppose I thought we’d have a madly impractical, terrifyingly modern sort of marriage. One based on love. Not to mention dangerous undertakings and hair’s-breadth escapes from burning buildings, high ledges and exploding sewers.””And bickering.””Always that, yes.””Assuming I want to marry at all.””True. I know of no good way of forcing you to do anything.””And you’re mad enough to think it could work – one day?”He cupped her face in his hands. His smile was so brilliant it seemed to illuminate the room. “I think it would be heaven.”She trembled, then. “You have a very strange idea of heaven.””Kiss me and see.”

“All writers should be put in a box and thrown in the sea.”

“And there was that poor sucker Flaubert rolling around on his floor for three days looking for the right word.”

“Life is and will ever remain an equation incapable of solution, but it contains certain known factors.”

“In fact that is why the lives of most women are so vaguely unsatisfactory. They are always doing secondary and menial things (that do not require all their gifts and ability) for others and never anything for themselves. Society and husbands praise them for it (when they get too miserable or have nervous breakdowns) though always a little perplexedly and half-heartedly and just to be consoling. The poor wives are reminded that that is just why wives are so splendid — because they are so unselfish and self-sacrificing and that is the wonderful thing about them! But inwardly women know that something is wrong. They sense that if you are always doing something for others, like a servant or nurse, and never anything for yourself, you cannot do others any good. You make them physically more comfortable. But you cannot affect them spiritually in any way at all. For to teach, encourage, cheer up, console, amuse, stimulate or advise a husband or children or friends, you have to be something yourself. […]”If you would shut your door against the children for an hour a day and say; ‘Mother is working on her five-act tragedy in blank verse!’ you would be surprised how they would respect you. They would probably all become playwrights.”

“The trouble with being a god is that you’ve got no one to pray to.”

“There’s an old, frequently-used definition of insanity, which is “performing the same action over and over, expecting different results.”… Now, I’m no doctor, but I am on TV. And in my professional opinion, George Bush is a paranoid schizophrenic. ……Other symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia are: Do you see things that aren’t there? Such as a link between 9/11 and Iraq? Do you – do you feel things that you shouldn’t be feeling, like a sense of accomplishment? Do you have trouble organizing words into a coherent sentence? Do you hear voices that aren’t really there? Like, oh, I don’t know, your imaginary friend, Jesus? Telling you to start a war in the Middle East.Well, guess what? There are a large number of people out there also suffering from the same delusions, because there are Republicans, there are conservatives, and then there are the Bushies. This is the 29 percent of Americans who still think he’s doing “a heck of a job, Whitey.” And I don’t believe that it’s coincidence that almost the same number of Americans – 25 percent – told a recent pollster that they believe that this year – this year, 2007 – would bring the Second Coming of Christ!I have a hunch these are the same people. Because, if you think that you’re going to meet Jesus before they cancel “Ugly Betty,” then you’re used to doing things by faith. And if you have so much blind faith that you think this war is winnable, you’re nuts and you shouldn’t be allowed near a voting booth.”