For me, Art is the restoration of order. It may discuss all sort of terrible things, but there must be satisfaction at the end. A little bit of hunger, but also satisfaction.

Love is divine only and difficult always.

I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me.

You been gone too long, Sula. Not too long, but maybe too far.

I'm not entangled in shaping my work according to other people's views of how I should have done it.

You got two feet, Sethe, not four." he said, and right then a forest sprang up between them; tactless and quiet.

You your best thing, Sethe. You are.

Say make me, remake me. You are free to do it and I am free to let you because look, look. Look where your hands are. Now.

Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear and when the land kills of its own volition, we acquiesce and say the victim had no right to live

Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love a free man is never safe.

How exquisitely human was the wish for permanent happiness, and how thin human imagination became trying to achieve it.

How come it can't fly no better than a chicken?" "Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.

The loss pressed down on her chest and came up into her throat. it was a fine cry -- loud and long -- but it had no bottom and no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.

You don't have to love me but you damn well have to respect me.

Sifting daylight dissolves the memory, turns it into dust motes floating in light.

For now he knew what Shalimar knew: If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.

I get angry about things, then go on and work.

No matter how hard we try to ignore it, the mind always knows truth and wants clarity.

Perhaps that's what all human relationships boil down to: Would you save my life? or would you take it?

Now he knew why he loved her so. Without ever leaving the ground, she could fly. 'There must be another one like you,' he whispered to her. 'There's got to be at least one more woman like you.

I write the way women have babies. You don't know it's going to be like that. If you did, there's no way you would go through with it.

The real hell of Hell is that it is forever.' Sula said that. She said doing anything forever and ever was hell.

When am I happy and when am I sad and what is the difference? What do I need to know to stay alive? What is true in the world?

O Lord, Sula,” she cried, “girl, girl, girlgirlgirl.” It was a fine cry—loud and long—but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.

There is no moral difference between a Stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. They both kill innocent people for political reasons.

Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure.

Britain today is suffering from galloping obsolescence.

Making mistakes is part of life. The only things I would feel ashamed of would be if I had said things I hadn't believed in order to get on. Some politicians do do that.

My filing system is messy but orderly.

At the end of my life, I was told to vote for it for pensioners; I' m not in favour of means tests for pensioners or anybody.

All war represents a failure of diplomacy.

I am on the right wing of the middle of the road and with a strong radical bias.

It's the same each time with progress. First they ignore you, then they say you're mad, then dangerous, then there's a pause and then you can't find anyone who disagrees with you.

Broadcasting is really too important to be left to the broadcasters.

Normally, people give up parliament because they want to do more business or spend more time with family. My wife said 'why don't you say you're giving up to devote more time to politics?'. And it is what I have done.

A faith is something you die for, a doctrine is something you kill for. There is all the difference in the world.

We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.

The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.

If you file your waste-paper basket for fifty years, you have a public library.

My day rotates around my family. I am very lucky.

I can't go to bed if I haven't done my diary. I always record them just as I've always recorded all my interviews and speeches.

Someone comes every morning at nine o'clock to see if I am still alive. I do get lonely, yes, but I have the children who come and see me. I see all my children every week, and there are the grandchildren, too.

I'm not frightened about death. I don't know why, but I just feel that at a certain moment your switch is switched off, and that's it. And you can't do anything about it.

The exhaustion of old age is something people who are younger don't fully appreciate.

I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralise them.

Age does take it out of you, and I haven't the energy I had before. Sometimes I have breakfast and sit in this chair, and I wake up and it is lunchtime. In the past, the idea of sleeping through a morning would have horrified me, but you have to accept the limitations that old age imposes on you.

The uncut diaries are 16 million words. It's very tiring to do your diary every night before you go to bed.

I've had a very full life, and I've enjoyed it very much. I've learned a great deal and feel indebted to all the people who have worked so hard.

Five questions for politicians: 1. What power have you got? 2. Where did you get it from? 3. In whose interest do you exercise it? 4. To whom are you accountable? 5. How can we get rid of you?

I see myself as an old man and an unqualified teacher to the nation. I think being a teacher is probably the most important thing you can be in politics.