Compassion is the most necessary ingredient in all relationships. Everything depends on it.

Libraries are like houses of worship: Whether or not you use them yourself, it’s important to know that they are there. In many ways they define a society and the values of that society. Librarians to me are the keepers of the flame of knowledge. When I was growing up, the librarian in my local library looked like a meek little old lady, but after you spent some time with her, you realized she was Athena with a sword, a wise and wonderful repository of wisdom.

I don’t need an alarm clock, for habit is the best alarm there is.

Early on, my abandoning father had set the pattern of my love life on the loom of my subconscious.

We’ve all done things we wish we hadn’t, made choices we didn’t even know were choices at that time. but that doesn’t mean we have to stick by them. In life, you find out who you are gradually, not all at once. You made a bad choice, okay? But you can still get out of it.

It’s much more interesting to try and understand what binds two people together. Why we stay with each other is much more of a mystery than why we don’t.

When a child dies, it breaks the pattern, the most fundamental pattern in life.

One’s only real regret in life is the failure to act.

The key to life is imagination.

If you bluff you can’t falter. You must tell a story your opponent can believe and make him believe it. It an odd way, you must believe the story yourself. And you can only do that if you believe in yourself.