Talent is the infinite capacity for taking pains. Genius is the infinite capacity for achievement without taking any pains at all.

Standing there, staring at the long shelves crammed with books, I felt myself relax and was suddenly at peace.

I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages someone long gone has called my attention to.

If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me? I owe it so much.

Why is it that people who wouldn't dream of stealing anything else think it's perfectly all right to steal books?

And for at least that moment, I wouldn't have traded the hundreds of books I've read for the few I know almost by heart.

I wanted to see London the way old people want to see home before they die.

History, as they say, is alive and well and living in London.

Hollywood isn't a place, it's a way of life.

It's against my principles to buy a book I haven't read, it's like buying a dress you haven't tried on.

I liked reading about the nun who ate so dainty with her fingers she never dripped any grease on herself. I've never been able to make that claim and I use a fork.

It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.

I mean Afghanistan is a very rugged, complicated country.

Don't think about your errors or failures; otherwise, you'll never do a thing.

My favorite book is always the one I'm working on at the moment

We already live in a Perfect Universe, but It needs to be seen mentally before It can become a part of our experience.

Old guys can still do fun things.

There is nothing which wings its flight so swiftly as calumny, nothing is uttered with more ease; nothing is listened to with more readiness, nothing disbursed more widely.

I'm no prophet. My job is making windows where there were once walls.

Being slightly paranoid is like being slightly pregnant - it tends to get worse.

Girl, boy or dancing bear, you're the finest page-the finest squire-to-be-at court." (Jon to Alanna)