A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Life is too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.

To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.

In the '60s, I was teaching humanities at a college in upstate New York and trying to publish a novel I'd written in graduate school. But nothing was happening. So I moved to New York City and got a job as a messenger at a place that made movies.

Church attendance rates among white Americans without a college education have dropped pretty significantly. People with college degrees are more likely to go to church than people without college degrees among the white working class.

I went to Australia from England when I was right at that age when you learn to read. It's a very confronting thing, traveling halfway around the world and having a mother who was deeply unhappy at ending up in Australia, so you look for some way to find comfort, I guess, and I found it in books.

From Calcutta has gone forth a living stream of knowledge in many branches of study. It is inspiring to think of the long succession of scholars, both Indian and European, who have lived in this city, made it their own, and given it of their best.