I love the musical form of books. It's a different way of doing things, it's very beautiful. You're able to sing things instead of saying them. So what the heck - why not do them?

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.

Looking back over a lifetime, you see that love was the answer to everything.

Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.

Sometimes you just have to jump out the window and grow wings on the way down.

I know you've heard it a thousand times before. But it's true - hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don't love something, then don't do it.

Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.

If the grass is greener on the other side, try planting better seeds.

The darkest of all hells resides in ones mind

I mean those people who are interested in good government will certainly contribute in order to make certain there's some counter-balance to those whose interests in good government is less.

I have never planned anything. I have been doing this job for over 50 years. I have been paid to work with some wonderful people and it has been a huge gift, to me.

She had listened to him, partly sympathetic, partly horrified. For it was one thing for her to reject her background, to be critical of her family's heritage, another to hear it from him.

Politics is not a game. Thousands of people's jobs and services depended on what the GLC did, and they expected us to do the best we could.

After university, I got a job sub-editing and for years I was a literary editor.

A loving heart, a heart full of love, is the precious essence of human life.

The Beatles are my number one - I think everything they did was amazing!

Anyone who pretends not to be interested in money is either a fool or a knave.