I learned ... that one can never go back, that one should not ever try to go back - that the essence of life is going forward. Life is really a one way street, isn't it?

A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.

An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.

I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness - to save oneself trouble.

It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.

Very few of us are what we seem.

Dogs are wise. They crawl away into a quiet corner and lick their wounds and do not rejoin the world until they are whole once more.

Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong.

Fear is incomplete knowledge.

Books are a habit-forming drug.

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

Only the living souls can praise the living God.

Reading is a staple of life, like bread or water. Or chocolate.

If you only enjoy the journey of writing, that's reward enough.

Because something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences.

Whatever a person frequently thinks and reflects on, that will become the inclination of their mind.

Yet a real artist, I've noticed, will survive anything. (Even praise, I happily suspect.)

Lower your expectations of earth. This isn't heaven, so don't expect it to be.

It is a grievous sin in the sight of God for any man to presume to baptize, unless God has authorized him by new revelation to baptize in his name

Behind every atom of this world hides an infinite Universe.

Our kids are going to be so angry with us one day. We've charged their future on our Visa cards.