I was married a few times, and one of my husbands was jealous of me writing.

It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions.

One of the most terrible feelings in the world is knowing that someone else doesn’t like you. Especially when you don’t know what you’ve done to deserve it.

I have written a book. This will come as quite a shock to some. They didn’t think I could read, much less write.

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

As a single withered tree, if set aflame, causes a whole forest to burn, so does a rascal son destroy a whole family.

A word after a word after a word is power.

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.

One of the things I’ve told men over and over and over and over is if you’re being rejected by all the women that you approach, it’s not the women!

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

It’s the journey of self, I guess. You start with this kind of loner, outside guy, which a lot of people can relate to, and he goes out into the world.

Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

In the Western Church to which I belong, priests cannot be married as in the Byzantine, Ukrainian, Russian or Greek Catholic Churches. In those churches, the priests can be married, but the bishops have to be celibate. They are very good priests.

I’ve done the bad-boy thing. It was fun for a good three months. But the thing about bad boys is, you have to keep in mind, you’re never gonna marry a bad boy.

I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.

Die to everything of yesterday so that your mind is always fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigor and passion.

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.

A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.

You start to become successful, and everybody starts to drive your money train to the bank, and they’re not thinking anymore about what you want as an artist or if any of that even matters to you. It genuinely upsets people in my life that I don’t care about money, and that’s not my problem.

You know, you can make a small mistake in language or etiquette in Britain, or you could when I was younger, and really be made to feel it, and it’s the flick of a lash, but it would sting, and especially at school where there’s not much privacy, and so on. You could, yes, undoubtedly be made to feel crushed.

I don’t care if people I admire criticize me because their opinion is valuable to me.

The truth is something that burns. It burns off dead wood. And people don’t like having the dead wood burnt off, often because they’re 95 percent dead wood.

Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.

I’m aware that, whatever the circumstances, there will always be speculation about me.

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

I boldly assert, in fact I think I know, that a lot of friendships and connections absolutely depend upon a sort of shared language, or slang. Not necessarily designed to exclude others, this can establish a certain comity and, even after a long absence, re-establish it in a second.

Jealousy is just love and hate at the same time.

Some people would like me to be round again.

‚Victory‘ is like, you won, so the question is, what? What did you win? I think that the songs go into that. It’s just about reaching a place in myself.

Pick the day. Enjoy it – to the hilt. The day as it comes. People as they come… The past, I think, has helped me appreciate the present – and I don’t want to spoil any of it by fretting about the future.

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.

We all have a tendency to avoid our weaknesses. When we do that, we never progress or get any better.

We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.

Adventuring can be for the ordinary person with ordinary qualities, such as I regard myself.

Writing means sharing. It’s part of the human condition to want to share things – thoughts, ideas, opinions.

One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them.

Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

We never love a person, but only qualities.

I never experiment with anything in my books. Experimentation means you don’t know what you’re doing.

It’s not to much fun to know yourself too well or think you do – everyone needs a little conceit to carry them through & past the falls.

Sometimes when you’ve had a long series of disappointing things happen, you can get into the very bad habit of just expecting more of what you’ve already had.

‚The New Yorker‘ was really my first experience with serious editing. Previously, I’d more or less just had copyediting with a few suggestions – not much.

I’m a genetic optimist.

I’m a human being and I fall in love and sometimes I don’t have control of every situation.

I’m not a bad person.

I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role.

Women deeply want men who are competent and powerful. And I don’t mean power in that they can exert tyrannical control over others. That’s not power. That’s just corruption.

There is no subject on which more dangerous nonsense is talked and thought than marriage.

I’ve never been pregnant, so I just feel God didn’t mean for me to have kids so that everybody else’s children could be mine.

It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.

I think that as you grow up, as you get older, we can’t get bitter, we can’t get jaded.

I am happy and I’m single.

Only the insecure strive for security.

Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.

The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.

‚Bellyache‘ is totally fictional. I like writing about things that aren’t real. The song is about not trusting anyone and then putting trust in yourself and realizing that you don’t know what you are doing, either. Or realizing that things you do with a group of people that you think are cool in the moment are ultimately all on you.

Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

I have great respect for the semicolon; it is a mighty handy little fellow.