Nothing makes a man feel older than to hear a band coming up the street and not to have the impulse to rush downstairs and out on to the sidewalk.

The biggest obstacle to professional writing is the necessity for changing a typewriter ribbon.

In a house where there are small children the bathroom soon takes on the appearance of the Old Curiosity Shop.

If Mr. Einstein doesn't like the natural laws of the universe, let him go back to where he came from.

I was a queen, and you took away my crown; a wife, and you killed my husband; a mother, and you deprived me of my children. My blood alone remains: take it, but do not make me suffer long.

The family, that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor in our innermost hearts never quite wish to.

I was very quick; I did nothing but play the piano apart from being at school. I was at home with my mother, saying, 'Go out and get some fresh air.' No, I wanted to play the piano all the time I could. I was completely obsessed.

My family has very strong women. My mother never laughed at my dream of Africa, even though everyone else did because we didn't have any money, because Africa was the 'dark continent', and because I was a girl.