Because I grew up in such tight spaces, I don't get manicures, pedicures. I'm not into cars, but I am into a fabulous house. I wanted the spiral staircase, clean sheets on the bed, to be able to take a shower.

I make sure that I am active all time. For example I make it a point not to use the lift or escalator. If there is a staircase then I will climb it, even if it is 10 floors.

Storytelling isn't an Escher staircase.

There's a staircase on the first floor of the Capitol that I walk every day. It's made of marble, and as you walk those steps, you think of those who've walked before you. You think of the challenges that the country's faced.

I've had great pleasure meeting the likes of Newt Gingrich and having a chat with the fellow on a staircase. I found him completely dishonest and totally likeable, because he doesn't care! He knows what a politician is, and he's a perfect embodiment of one.

I would always fall down the big main staircase in our house. My favorite thing in the world was to pretend to be horribly killed at the top of it, and to fall dramatically down to the bottom of it.

As in the Divine Right of Kings, hierarchies invest those who preside at the top of their pyramidal structure with absolute power to rule over the lesser ranks that spread down like a marble staircase to the broad foundation stones of those with no power at all.

I remember in '37 when trolley cars were so big in New York. It was five cents for a ride... There used to be open-air buses, and you could go up a spiral staircase and sit up on top. Those were great, great days.

In a crime story, the details become tremendously important - where the staircase was in relation to the bed, for example.

My own office life at Hampton Court is somewhat challenging food-wise. It's miles from anywhere, off the Chapel Court, deep inside the palace, up a spiral staircase of 51 steps. You can't just nip out for a sandwich.

My life is very exciting now. Nostalgia for what? It's like climbing a staircase. I'm on the top of the staircase, I look behind and see the steps. That's where I was. We're here right now. Tomorrow, we'll be someplace else. So why nostalgia?

The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.

I joined a writing class at a nearby community center, where I was the youngest participant by about 40 years. Once a week, I'd funnel down a staircase and join the dozen retirees crowded in folding chairs around a table to discuss one another's stories.

I watched 'Holiday' in college, and that was when I had my first fantasy of being Katharine Hepburn, standing at the top of the staircase in a huge Hollywood mansion.

I've always had this in a kind of worst-case dark imagination. I want to know what the dark form in the window is. I want to know what the noise under the staircase is.

I never thought of myself in comedy at all... I loved going to the theatre and seeing people wearing beautiful clothes come down the staircase and start to dance.

It's like climbing a staircase. I'm on the top of the staircase, I look behind me and I see the steps. That's where I was.

The most solitary I ever felt was when I was living in New York. I used to live in Enrico Caruso's old apartment, and I had a special staircase that took me up to the roof. There was nobody up there.

To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality.