When you doubt, abstain.

Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.

Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.

Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.

Spring beckons! All things to the call respond; the trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.

Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.

Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.

Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

Consul - in American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.

Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.

Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial; but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth.

Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.

Insurance - an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.

Present, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.

Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.

Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.

Doubt is the father of invention.

Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.

It's a wonderful time when you sit down around the table for dinner and discuss life. No matter where you are, it gives the semblance of normalcy to my crazy world.

Ultimately, my greatest achievement is maintaining my career while sustaining a happy marriage and kids.

A band is a good way to break up a friendship.

If the choice is between doing something supercool and having no one hear it and doing something equally cool and tricking people into putting it on the radio, I don't think the second option is some big sellout.

L.A.'s kind of, like, seven really cool towns. It's so laid-back. If you go in the right spot, you can walk around, and you don't need a car.

Whenever I go to shows, I end up looking at what shoes the guy onstage is wearing and the jacket he's got on. And when you know everything's gonna be under scrutiny, it makes you feel more comfortable if you have cool stuff.

Desire is individual. Happiness is common.

Religion is never the problem; it's the people who use it to gain power.

Vanity can easily overtake wisdom. It usually overtakes common sense.

My parents separated when I was eight. I grew up with my mom alone.

It find it funny how people from Boston and New York hate each other because of pro teams.

I find it funny how people from Boston and New York hate each other because of pro teams. But, like, everyone on the Red Sox is a random millionaire athlete from somewhere else.

I'm just going to try and be a good dad and not spoil the kid: give him love and encouragement but also discipline. Me and my woman, we don't want him to feel too entitled.

When the whole world reads your books, is there any other happiness for a writer? I am happy that my books are read in 57 languages. But I am focused on Istanbul not because of Istanbul but because of humanity. Everyone is the same in the end.

Life is short, and we should respect every moment of it.

Oscar Wilde always makes me smile - with respect and admiration. His short stories prove that it is possible to be both sarcastic, even cynical, but deeply compassionate. Just seeing the cover of one of Wilde's books in a bookshop makes me smile.

My home is attached to a study - in fact, my home is my study, and I have a little room to sleep in. I need to write looking onto the street or a landscape. Looking at reality from some distance gives me romantic visions.

I wanted to tell a romantic and dark side of Ottoman history that was also slightly political, saying to the previous generation of writers, 'Look, I'm interested in Ottoman things, and I'm not afraid of it, and I'm doing something creative.'

I would be pleased if someone would invent a pill to remove my impatience, moodiness, and occasional bursts of anger. But if they did, I wouldn't be able to write my novels or paint.

I believe in a world where there are no heroes, and I've read and know humanity a lot. There are moments that I admire in a person courage, intellect, hard work. These are the qualities I admire in an intellectual, in a writer, and there are so many people who have these things.

Friendship is a wildly underrated medication.

President Obama called for a 'we' nation in his Inauguration Address. Art convenes. It is not just inspirational. It is aspirational. It pricks the walls of our compartmentalized minds, opens our hearts and makes us brave. And that's what we need most in our country today.

To live your life well, and have respect for what came before or after - there's a strong respect for that in African culture.

I think we need leadership that helps us remember that part of what we are about is caring about more than the person right next to us, but the folks across the way.

I was a mimic when I was a child. I mimicked the teacher and made friends that way, actually. That was a very subversive activity, because I was a goody-goody who never got in trouble. But if I went off in the corner and mimicked the teacher, people loved it.

Somehow we can't live outside the politics of race. There's something very deep in all of us, that is taught to us when we are very, very little. Which is the disrespect and fear of the other.

Learning is a tunnel experience that makes us think more broadly.

I made a real specific decision when I came out of school and most artists were writing about home - if you were a woman, you were writing about being a woman - and I decided not to do that, write about what you know. That's not what I do. I went as far away from home as possible in terms of the development of my imagination.

A star on a movie set is like a time bomb. That bomb has got to be defused so people can approach it without fear.