Like many rich men, he thought in anecdotes; like many simple women, she thought in terms of biography.

You can never betray the people who are dead, so you go on being a public Jew; the dead can't answer slurs, but I'm here. I would love to think that Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, but he doesn't.

Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.

A complete woman is probably not a very admirable creature. She is manipulative, uses other people to get her own way, and works within whatever system she is in.

Great writers are the saints for the godless.

What is interesting about self-analysis is that it leads nowhere - it is an art form in itself.

It will be a pity if women in the more conventional mould are to be phased out, for there will never be anyone to go home to.

Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence - a lot passes you by - simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.

Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists.

Life... is not simply a series of exciting new ventures. The future is not always a whole new ball game. There tends to be unfinished business. One trails all sorts of things around with one, things that simply won't be got rid of.

In real life, of course, it is the hare that wins. Every time. Look around you.

There are moments when you feel free, moments when you have energy, moments when you have hope, but you can't rely on any of these things to see you through. Circumstances do that.

All good fortune is a gift of the gods, and you don't win the favor of the ancient gods by being good, but by being bold.

You have no idea how promising the world begins to look once you have decided to have it all for yourself. And how much healthier your decisions are once they become entirely selfish.

It is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. hares have no time to read.

In real life, it is the hare who wins. Every time. Look around you. And in any case it is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. Hares have no time to read. They are too busy winning the game.

The essence of romantic love is that wonderful beginning, after which sadness and impossibility may become the rule.

No blame should attach to telling the truth. But it does, it does.

Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.

Old men should have more care to end life well than to live long.

A man of such obvious and exemplary charm must be a liar.

You never know what you will learn till you start writing. Then you discover truths you never knew existed.

Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything.

Like many rich men, he thought in anecdotes; like many simple women, she thought in terms of biography.

The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.

Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has.

I was a teacher most of my life, which I loved. I had a very happy working life, and when I retired, I thought I must do something, and I've always read a lot of fiction - you learn so much from fiction. My sentimental education came mostly from fiction, I should say, so I thought I'd try.

A complete woman is probably not a very admirable creature. She is manipulative uses other people to get her own way and works within whatever system she is in.

What is interesting about self analysis is that it leads nowhere it is an art form in itself.

Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence, a lot passes you by, simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.

Romanticism is not just a mode; it literally eats into every life. Women will never get rid of just waiting for the right man.

Satire is dependent on strong beliefs, and on strong beliefs wounded.

And I began to tell little anecdotes that had happened to me, and people would laugh. And I began to like that, you know. But I knew that, 'cause I'd do that in school, but I wouldn't do it out there in front of all them people.

As we grow older, our bodies get shorter and our anecdotes longer.

About 100 things that your kid will do that will surprise you and break your heart and it will be a combination of fact based therapy, medically advised kinds of passages accompanied by celebrity anecdotes and just some funny stuff to lighten the load.

Like many rich men, he thought in anecdotes; like many simple women, she thought in terms of biography.

I'm no good at anecdotes.

Geography is about maps, but biography is about chaps.

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.

In writing biography, fact and fiction shouldn't be mixed. And if they are, the fictional points should be printed in red ink, the facts printed in black ink.

We have escapist fiction, so why not escapist biography?

No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

Biography lends to death a new terror.

But for a few phrases from his letters and an odd line or two of his verse, the poet walks gagged through his own biography.

I'm an avid biography reader.

Biography - a system in which the contradictions of a human life are unified.

I have had the unfortunate experience of having someone write an unauthorised biography of me. Half of it is lies and the other half is badly written. My feeling is that if I'm going to write my life story, I ought to have my life first.

I became quite taken over by Johnson's personality at some points while writing the biography, and since I went straight on to The Closed Circle afterwards, I did sometimes feel I could hear him whispering in my ear while I was working on it.

I never wanted to do biography just to tell the life of a famous man. I always wanted to use the life of a man to examine political power, because democracy shapes our lives.