All the words I use in my stories can be found in the dictionary-it's just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences.

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.

It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

Of all the religions in the world, perhaps the religion of liberty is the only faith capable of purity.

if you are using probability arguments wit yourself, you are saying: “I want to live a life like everybody else!” By definition, an exceptional life is a life of low probability.

For out of the perverse will came lust, and the service of lust ended in habit, and habit, not resisted, became necessity.

You'll either find the answer or you'll come up with a better question.

You say you're going to be the pope, become the pope.

Fiction is about human beings, first and foremost. (It's not impossible to write fiction with no human protagonists, but it's very hard to keep the reader interested ...)

We have developed a culture in which we eat with our taste buds, not our brains.

When we are honest - that's my saying - if we are honest then we will reveal ourselves. But we do not have to make an effort to be individualistic, different from others.

We are so much more powerful and important than we realize. In each moment that we connect with another, we have the opportunity to etch a memory into their heart.