“A psychiatrist once told me early in treatment, Stop trying to make me like you, and what a sobering and welcome smack in the face that statement was. Yet somehow, every day of my life is still a c...”

“I've had it with being nice, understanding, fair and hopeful. I feel like being negative all day. The chip on my shoulder could sink the QE2. I've got an attitude problem and nobody better get in m...”

“I always wanted to be a juvenile delinquent but my parents wouldn't let me.”

“Collect books, even if you don't plan on reading them right away. Nothing is more important than an unread library.”

“Catholics have more extreme sex lives because they're taught that pleasure is bad for you. Who thinks it's normal to kneel down to a naked man who's nailed to a cross? It's like a bad leather bar.”

“I believe that if a seven-year old kid has heard of Naked Lunch and is daring enough to want to read it, hes old enough to read it.”

“Some experiences are universal. A girl is a girl whether she lives in West Omaha or Sweet Valley. Books are often far more than books.”

“A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.”

“The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,And all the sweet serenity of books”

“No matter what gifts you have, practice is the only way to get better at anything."If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery it would not seem so wonderful at all - Michael Angelo”

“You're gorgeous, you old hag, and if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of confidence. Either that or a scented candle”

“Time is a precious gift.”

“Sex can be used either for self-affirmation or for self-transcendence either to intensify the ego and consolidate the social persona by some kind of conspicuous embarkation and heroic conquest, or...”

“He didn't know all that much about how the machinery worked anyway. Such knowledge was for specialists. In war, as in love, he was a fearless, happy-go-lucky adventurer.”

“If she did experience sex--or something close to it--in high school, I'm sure it would have been less out of sexual desire or love than literary curiosity.”