Simple, genuine goodness is the best capital to found the business of this life upon. It lasts when fame and money fail, and is the only riches we can take out of this world with us.

It takes so little to make a child happy, that it is a pity in a world full of sunshine and pleasant things, that there should be any wistful faces, empty hands, or lonely little hearts.

The small hopes and plans and pleasures of children should be tenderly respected by grown-up people, and never rudely thwarted or ridiculed.

…no person, no matter how vivid an imagination he may have, can invent anything half so droll as the freaks and fancies that originate in the lively brains of little people.

leave him free, and the mere sense of liberty would content him, joined to the knowledge that his presence was dear to those whom he loved best.

Mothers have need of sharp eyes and discreet tongueswhen they have girls to manage

The man was bearing down on me. My hands were limp and wet. Please, I thought. Please. Who was I addressing? The man? God? Whoever handled these things.

Reading had always been, through bad, boring, or better times, his best connection to humans.

To work hard, to live hard, to die hard, and then go to hell after all would be too damn hard.

When a storm comes, bamboo bends. It doesn't break.

On being: Arrogance is not the prerogative of the gifted.

For eight-and-a-half years, I was just watching movies, and just staying in bed and just eating food and just, you know, being just miserable.

Playboy offered me a lot to do their mag but I'm not even the sort to go topless on the beach.

We read the world - television, movies, songs, books - and the people in it through the lens of our own lives.

I say one evil empire down...one to go.

Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes