As somebody once said, we're not punished for our sins, we're punished by them.

Arnold Bennett was a writer I admired. He was actually taking notes at his father's deathbed.

As somebody once said, we're not punished for our sins, we're punished by them.

Gossip is more popular than literature.

I think with every writer there are two people there.

It's a natural thing for people to say, you know, Who's in this book? I find myself get ting a little defensive. People come along and I'm waiting for that first question.

I don't think anyone is the perfect one to play me.

I've always believed in survival.

We were married for almost 45 years. We fought all the time, it wasn't a great love or anything, it wasn't a great, all-consuming passion. She was just there. A lot of people were startled because we didn't seem devoted but we were.

I'm a writer, and what I do is write. I wasn't able to do anything else.

My life is every moment of my life. It is not a culmination of the past.

I went through life like an idiot for a great deal of the time, saying there's nothing I would change. That was a very arrogant thing to say. There's a lot I would change. There are people I would have steered clear of.

My mother was passionate. She was stubborn, the dominant one in the family. She dominated my father.

I came down to the living room one day and my wife was standing in the living room. It wasn't an illusion. I saw her out of the corner of my eye. The moment I saw her, she vanished.

The problem with Ireland is that it's a country full of genius, but with absolutely no talent.

A thing well done is worth doing.

I feel like the writer observing the grief, but it is difficult to be detached from it.

I'm a much nicer person since my wife died. I found out what pain is, so on that level I'm much nicer.

We are all the foolishness and all the crimes we did. We're also all the kindnesses we did. I hate to think of life as if we understood time. We don't understand time.

My father I liked, but it was only after his death that I got to know him by writing the play.

I've always enjoyed a woman's company more than men's. They're usually better looking.

People have said, 'Why don't you make your own company like Chan-wook Park has his own company,' but my head is full of writing and directing and I don't feel like I want to run a company. That's not really within my personality as well.

We're Americans. We shape our own future. Let's start by standing up for President Barack Obama.

Without passion you don't have energy, with out energy you have nothing.

Both CNN and NPR prohibit political activity by all journalists, no matter their assignment.

The good thing about being pregnant is that I don't have to worry about sucking it in or dieting!

While in some countries there's a feeling that literature must stay away from religion, this is not so in India - in the Indian way, literature is just another means to find a more spiritual life, to find our way to God.

Cloning interferon was not something I wanted to get into.

Drama starts where logic ends.

The man who spends all his time looking up to heaven is not always the best; in fact, he is usually the worst.

All men of action are dreamers.

I just want real creative freedom without worrying about, you know, car payments.

I would not go so far as to say that the French trade unions attached greater importance to the struggle for peace than the others did; but they certainly seemed to take it more to heart.

A U.K. vote to exit the European Union could have significant economic repercussions.

Well, that's what it was bloody well designed to do, wasn't it?

Ideologists of all kinds find a strange sort of comfort in the madness of the crowd; it confirms them in their suspicion that history, far from being made by the great mass of individuals - as Marx averred - is rather unmade by a single massive individual, a collective Other, who stands in stark contrast to you and he.

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

I thought I had to show people that I would get in early, stay late or even all night, work on holidays. I didn't want to be the rich kid who was along for a free ride.

I don't think I can play Mr. Bachchan.

I was told it might be quite difficult to conceive, so it really was a great blessing when my pregnancy suddenly happened. I had been diagnosed years ago with polycystic ovarian syndrome, which can affect your fertility - but luckily, in my case, it didn't.

I like my shadow; it reminds me that I exist.

In the theater, it's a visceral and physical response because you move around so much. You have to do something physical to pull you in. On TV or in movies, everything is so small. You can just lock into a character and ease yourself into that way.

If you're going to publish a book, you probably are going to make a fool of yourself.

Mother had to support herself at age 18 because it was during the depression and when my grandfather lost the farm and there was no place for her; she worked as an assistant to a maid.

Among the seascapes, I am doing the regattas of Le Havre with many figures on the beach and the outer harbor covered with small sails.