"While I am sure there are a number of women who secretly wonder whether they are lesbian, most simply have, somewhere, a fantasy about having sex, in a non-defining, non-exclusive way, with other women."

"My sister lives in New York and she was struck by how class-ridden the reviews were. Everyone had to mention that I'm posh. British people are obsessed by that. I said to John, 'I'm not posh.' Is my voice posh?""

"It’s true that I wouldn’t have written the first book had my sister and mother been alive. It was my way of continuing our conversation. It's also this Jewish thing of naming and remembering people, and I think there is a sense of keeping that side of life going."

"The trouble with modern cooking is that the mood it induces in the cook is one of skin-of-the-teeth efficiency, all briskness and little pleasure."

"There are two Christmas traditions I've inherited from my mother. One is the feeling that Christmas isn't complete if you haven't got a ham as well as a turkey. It means that the leftovers are much better. And in a curious way, despite the fact that we're talking about Christmas and ham, it's a very Jewish thing to want to provide a huge spread. I always cook for eight, but make enough to feed 30..."

"Life that dares send A challenge to his end, And when it comes, say, Welcome, friend!"

"Sydneian showers Of sweet discourse, whose powers Can crown old Winter’s head with flowers."

"Days that need borrow No part of their good morrow From a fore-spent night of sorrow."

"Whoe’er she be, That not impossible she, That shall command my heart and me."

"Where’er she lie, Locked up from mortal eye, In shady leaves of destiny."

"The conscious water saw its God and blushed."

"Now though the blow that snatcht him hence, Stopt the Mouth of Eloquence, Though she be dumb e'r since his Death, Not us'd to speak but in his Breath; Yet if at least she not denies, The sad Language of our Eyes, We are contented: for then this Language none more fluent is. Nothing speaks our Grief so well As to speak nothing: Come then tell Thy mind in Tears who e'r thou be, That ow'st a Name to Misery: Eyes are Vocal, Tears have Tongues, And there be words not made with Lungs; Sententious showers, O let them fall, Their cadence is Rhetorical. Here's a Theme will drink th' expence Of all thy watry Eloquence; Weep then, onely be exprest Thus much, He's Dead, and Weep the rest."

"Let hearts and lippes speak lowd; and say Hail, door of life: and sourse of day! The door was shutt, the fountain seal'd; Yet Light was seen and Life reveald. The door was shutt, yet let in day, The fountain seald, yet life found way."

"A happy soul, that all the way To heaven hath a summer’s day."

"’Tis love, not years or limbs that can Make the martyr, or the man."

"Souls are not Spaniards too; one friendly flood Of baptism blends them all into a blood. Christ's faith makes but one body of all souls, And love's that body's soul; no law controls Our free traffic for heav'n; we may maintain Peace, sure, with piety, though it come from Spain. What soul soe'er, in any language, can Speak heav'n like hers is my soul's countryman. Oh, 'tis not Spanish, but 'tis heav'n she speaks! 'Tis heaven that lies in ambush there, and breaks From thence into the wond'ring reader's breast, Who feels his warm heart hatched into a nest Of little eagles and young loves, whose high Flights scorn the lazy dust and things that die."

"The modest front of this small floor, Believe me, reader, can say more Than many a braver marble can,— “Here lies a truly honest man!”"

"If I were lost in misery What was it to Thy heaven and thee? What was it to Thy precious blood If my foul heart called for a flood? What if my faithless soul and I Would needs fall in With guilt and sin, What did the lamb that He should die? What did the lamb that He should need, When the wolf sins, Himself to bleed?"

"Love's great artillery."

"Thou water turn'st to wine, fair friend of life; Thy foe, to cross the sweet arts of Thy reign, Distils from thence the tears of wrath and strife, And so turns wine to water back again."

"A great many Arabs are alive today because we used these methods and a great many Argyll's are alive today because we used them."

"I have no compunction in saying that if some chap starts throwing grenades or starts using pistols, we shall kill him"

"I know that if I am not at my best and I do not perform I will lose. I'm never over-confident. Over-confidence is a weakness because it stops you training as hard as you should. It has happened to fighters like Naseem Hamed and Lennox Lewis. Complacency beats fighters."

"Lord Byron, in response to Lady Mary Montague's line 'And we meet, with champagne and a chicken at last' (from "The Lover: A Ballad"), reported in Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: with Notices of his Life, ed. Thomas Moore (Paris: A. and W. Gaglinani, 1830), p. 391"

"Cease, fond shepherd! Cease desiring What you never must enjoy; She derides your vain aspiring, She, to all your sex is coy.Cunning Damon once pursued her, Yet she never would incline; Strephon too, as vainly wooed her, Though his flocks are more than thine.At Diana’s shrine, aloud, By the zone around her waist, Thrice she bowed, and thrice she vowed, Like the Goddess, to be chaste."

"Though I never get possession, ’Tis a pleasure to adore; Hope, the wretch’s only blessing, May, in time, procure me more.Constant courtship may obtain her, Where both wealth and merit fail; And the lucky minute gain her— Fate and fancy must prevail.At Diana’s shrine, aloud, By the bow and by the quiver, Thrice she bowed, and thrice she vowed, Once to love—and that forever."

"Thou silver deity of secret night, Direct my footsteps through the woodland shade; Thou conscious witness of unknown delight, The Lover’s guardian, and the Muse’s aid!By thy pale beams I solitary rove, To thee my tender grief confide; Serenely sweet you gild the silent grove, My friend, my goddess, and my guide.E’en thee, fair queen, from thy amazing height, The charms of young Endymion drew; Veil’d with the mantle of concealing night; With all thy greatness and thy coldness too."

"Civility costs nothing and buys everything."

"Let this great maxim be my virtue’s guide,— In part she is to blame that has been tried: He comes too near that comes to be denied."

"Be plain in dress, and sober in your diet; In short, my deary, kiss me, and be quiet."

"Good madam, when ladies are willing, A man must needs look like a fool; For me I would not give a shilling For one who would love out of rule.You should leave us to guess by your blushing, And not speak the matter so plain; ’Tis our’s to write and be pushing, ’Tis yours to affect disdain.That you’re in a terrible taking, By all these sweet oglings I see, But the fruit that can fall without shaking, Indeed is too mellow for me."

"Satire should, like a polished razor keen, Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen."

"But the fruit that can fall without shaking Indeed is too mellow for me."

"What say you to such a supper with such a woman? ... Is not her 'champagne and chicken' worth a forest or two? Is it not poetry?"

"Uncommon things must be said in common words, if you would have them to be received in less than a century."

"Enough's a surfeit to the soul."

"Life's warp of Heaven and woof of Hell."

"The enthusiasm for goodness which shows that it is not the habit of the mind."

"Modern Philosophers, that wisely keep to sandy shallows, like shrimps, for fear of bigger fish."

"Holy indignation is a proof that we should do the same thing ourselves, and easy tears are a certain sign of a hard heart."

"The proper study of mankind is woman."

"Nothing remains with man unless it is insinuated with some delight."

"Nothingness is capacity, and night the opportunity of light."

"The dull and heavy hate of fools."

"Good people and religious are the first to say, "He hath a devil" of any one whose way is widely different from and maybe greatly higher than their own."

"The cloud that is light to Israel is darkness to Egypt."

"Ninety-nine men in a hundred are natural men, that is, beasts of prey; and it is mere insanity, in business matters, to deal with a stranger upon any other assumption than that he is a natural man, though we should veil our knowledge of the actual fact by a courteous recognition in words and manners of his better possibilities."