Nicolas Chamfort

Living is a sickness to which sleep provides relief every sixteen hours. It's a palliative. The remedy is death.

Scandal is an importunate wasp, against which we must make no movement unless we are quite sure that we can kill it; otherwise it will return to the attack more furious than ever.

Nature never said to me: Do not be poor; still less did she say: Be rich; her cry to me was always: Be independent.

As a writer, I try to do different things, but I'm not going to become a darker artist or turn into Radiohead overnight. I don't think that's my style.

Well, I actually wrote her a letter a couple of days ago congratulating her. The tone I tried to convey in the letter is, look, you are a part of a great American historical process.

Another thing that freaks me out is time. Time is like a book. You have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's just a cycle.