I did not throw 'The Shepherd Boy Sings in the Valley of Humiliation' at the audience. I threw it at the elocution mistress. I meant to cast it at her feet, but I missed.

I have gone to [this bookshop] for years, always finding the one book I wanted - and then three more I hadn’t known I wanted.

I don't want to be married just to be married. I can't think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can't talk to, or worse, someone I can't be silent with.

Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life.

Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.

Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books.

Think of it! We could have gone on longing for one another and pretending not to notice forever. This obsession with dignity can ruin your life if you let it.

Then I imagined a lifetime of having to cry to get him to be kind, and I went back to no again.

Do you arrange your books alphabetically? (I hope not.)

‎What a blight that woman is. Do you happen to know why? I lean toward a malignant fairy at her christening.

I did not want to spend my time reading about people who never were, doing things they never did.

Move on. Be well. Go for it!

Love and kindness are most precious where there is endless suffering.

How to write a book? Start writing, continue writing and finish writing.

You can't trust an artist that just makes good records.

Assumptions are made and most assumptions are wrong.

Take time to thank everyone who has helped you along the way.

To engage people in culture we must remember that holiness is separation from sin, not separation from sinners.

Relief. Excitement and relief. Relief is definitely the key word.

Adam, who said to Eve, What do you mean you have nothing to wear? Never got a dinner!

Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.