"The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion." — Doris Lessing, Iranian-English author, born 1919
"Parents should leave books lying around marked ‘forbidden’ if they want their children to read." — Doris Lessing, Iranian-English author, born 1919
"Every time I look at you I get a fierce desire to be lonesome." — Oscar Levant, American pianist, born 1906
"There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line." — Oscar Levant, American pianist, born 1906
"For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For poise, walk with the knowledge you never walk alone. If you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of each of your arms." — Sam Levenson, American humorist, born 1911
"You can live for years next door to a big pine tree, honored to have so venerable a neighbor, even when it sheds needles all over your flowers or wakes you, dropping big cones onto your deck at still of night." — Denise Levertov, American poet, born 1923
"Insofar as poetry has a social function it is to awaken sleepers by other means than shock." — Denise Levertov, American poet, born 1923
"In the dark I rest, unready for the light which dawns day after day, eager to be shared. Black silk, shelter me. I need more of the night before I open eyes and heart to illumination. I must still grow in the dark like a root not ready, not ready at all." — Denise Levertov, American poet, born 1923
"What joy when the insouciant armadillo glances at us and doesn't quicken his trotting across the track into the palm brush. What is this joy? That no animal falters, but knows what it must do?" — Denise Levertov, American poet, born 1923
"I learn to affirm Truth's light at strange turns of the mind's road, wrong turns that lead over the border into wonder." — Denise Levertov, American poet, born 1923
"I believe every space and comma is a living part of the poem and has its function, just as every muscle and pore of the body has its function. And the way the lines are broken is a functioning part essential to the life of the poem." — Denise Levertov, American poet, born 1923