“I never wanted to go away, and the hard part now is the leaving you all. I'm not afraid, but it seems as if I should be homesick for you even in heaven.”

“I like adventures, and I’m going to find some.”

“…tomorrow was her birthday, and she was thinking how fast the years went by, how old she was getting, and how little she seemed to have accomplished. Almost twenty-five and nothing to show for it.”

“life and love are very precious when both are in full bloom.”

I think pain is a very - it's an extremely hard thing to empathize moment to moment. And you often don't remember your own pain, you know, that moment that you broke a limb or you burned yourself or, I think, this is a common thing that women talk about with childbirth, that the memory of the pain is hard to summon up and relive, thankfully.

“I am lonely, sometimes, but I dare say it's good for me…”

“…because talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing.”

“Jo had learned that hearts, like flowers, cannot be rudely handled, but must open naturally…”

“I wish I had no heart, it aches so…”

“I think she is growing up, and so begins to dream dreams, and have hopes and fears and fidgets, without knowing why or being able to explain them.”

“The emerging woman ... will be strong-minded, strong-hearted, strong-souled, and strong-bodied...strength and beauty must go together.”

“Some people seemed to get all sunshine, and some all shadow…”

“Don't try to make me grow up before my time…”

“I'd rather take coffee than compliments just now.”

“I like good strong words that mean something…”

Girls are complicated. The instruction manual that comes with girls is 800 pages, with chapters 14, 19, 26 and 32 missing, and it's badly translated, hard to figure out.

The first big stars, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, you know, these were gigantic stars. I even wonder sometimes whether all music actually comes from women, whether the first glimmering of music is a mother soothing a baby.

Women like bad boys…Being a good boy never worked for me.

When you start falling for somebody and you can't stop thinking about when you're going to see them again, I love that. Women are beautiful. They deserve to be cherished and respected.

Watch how you communicate with a woman. Because you're always communicating, even when you're not talking - with your body language, your facial expressions, your eyes.

I'm quite sensitive to women. I saw how my sister got treated by boyfriends. I read this thing that said when you are in a relationship with a woman, imagine how you would feel if you were her father. That's been my approach, for the most part.

I'm tactile, very tactile. A woman who has really nice, looked-after skin is such a turn-on for me. It's always sexy.

I fell in love with football as I was later to fall in love with women: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain or disruption it would bring with it.

The worst of a woman is that she expects you to make love to her, or to pretend to make love to her.