Royalty is a fine burial shroud.

For a king, death is better than dethronement and exile.

For my own part, I adhere to the maxim of antiquity, that the throne is a glorious sepulchre.

Accept criticism. If you do not offer your work for criticism and accept that criticism, meaning give it serious thought and attention, then you will never improve.

Fond, flatt'ring world, adieu!

I suddenly realized I was a writer of wide reputation and most of it bad.

What writers do - everything comes from inside, from experiences of the world that we have digested. And then we turn it into silk, or stories.

If you’re a writer, your first duty, a duty you owe to yourself and your readers, and to your writing itself, is to become wonderful. To become the best writer you can possibly be.

I think part of my purpose in this life is to talk about magic, and to make it.

The only thing worth thinking about, when I write a story, is whether I like it, whether I want to write it, whether it excites me.

The appeal of writing a romance was that I'd never written one before the The Thorn and The Blossom.

Acquiring knowledge is the most fruitful effort.

His overactive charm poured out like a lone drainage pipe after a flash flood.

I come from a place where everything about me, even my body language, is saying: I mean you no harm. I smile, I laugh. Basic stuff for most people.

I have not been immersed in music and life. I'm inspired by the simple things in life.

But aren't many gardens beautiful because they are imperfect?...aren't the strange, new flowers that arise by mistake or misadventure as pleasing as the well-tended and planned?

The plants which stand next to dwarf trees in importance with the Chinese are certainly chrysanthemums, which they manage extremely well, perhaps better than they do any other plant.

There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.

The Lord has given an overcoming victory to every person who is born again.

You do not need to do anything first to be enlightened.