If you don't go to a dance you can never be rejected but you'll never get to dance either.

I don't have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turning into confident ducks.

I try to make my characters kind of ordinary, somebody that anybody could be. Because we've all had loves, perhaps love and loss, people can relate to my characters.

Nobody is ordinary if you know where to look.

I'm an escapist kind of writer.

Women who start out as ugly ducklings don't become beautiful swans. What they mainly become is confident ducks. They take charge of their lives.

The whole art of life is knowing the right time to say things.

Always write as if you are talking to someone. It works. Don't put on any fancy phrases or accents or things you wouldn't say in real life.

Because I saw my parents relaxing in armchairs and reading and liking it, I thought it was a peaceful grown-up thing to do, and I still think that.

We are all the heroes and heroines of our own lives. Our love stories are amazingly romantic; our losses and betrayals and disappointments are gigantic in our own minds.

I have always believed that life is too short for rows and disagreements. Even if I think I'm right, I would prefer to apologize and remain friends rather than win and be an enemy.

You have half our gifts. I the other. Together we make a whole. Together we are much more powerful.

I think we have to stop using the expression "alt-right." It's ridiculous. It's racist, fascist, nationalist.

The weariest night, the longest day, sooner or later must perforce come to an end.

I always just been a fan of the music... and the aesthetic only in an abstract sense.

The refutation of suicide: is it not inelegant to abandon a world which has so willingly put itself at the service of our melancholy?

To fail to love is not to exist at all.

God has made no one absolute.

If I just gave you a piece of paper with the lyrics written down on it, it would mean something to you. It would tell you a story.

You'll often hear the phrase "science doesn't know everything." Well, of course it doesn't know everything. But just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean that it knows nothing.

Brothers all In honour, as in one community, Scholars and gentlemen.