Every man's endeavor was imbued with responsibility

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you - it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists.

He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.

You can no more make someone tell the truth than you can force someone to love you.

Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.

The horror of being caged has lost its thrill.

Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.

I have a slogan I use when I get anxious writing, which happens quite a bit: ‘the ordeal is part of the commitment.’ It’s one of my mantras. It makes a lot of things doable.

When the whole world doesn't believe in God, it'll be a great place.

Because that is when you love somebody - when you see them being game in the face of the worst. Not courageous. Not heroic. Just game.

Family, friends and relationships are the blessings of the God. They are the best way to access God.

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experiences behind him.

My friends are me and in essence better than me, they help me be better even when they don't know it.

As far as I know, you only get one shot at this life. It only goes round once and time is precious. When I'm not working, you'd better spend that time with someone important.

Yet the Teaching is simple. Do what is right. Be pure. At the end of the way is freedom.

The wealth of the country, its capital, its credit, must be saved from the predatory poor as well as the predatory rich, but above all from the predatory politician.

I cannot help thinking that it is more natural to have flowers grow out of the head than fruit.

For some reason, I was born without a sense of embarrassment or shame.

It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.

All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance.