The love that dare not speak its name has become the love that won't shut up.

Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.

There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity.

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

I cannot imagine any boy of spirit who would not be delighted to play a drunkard even to vomiting in front of his Sunday school. Indeed, the vomiting might be the chief attraction of the role.

The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past.

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

A man must be obedient to the promptings of his innermost heart.

Art is wine and experience is the brandy we distill from it.

Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue; sometimes it is a deeply shared silence.

The dog is a yes-animal. Very popular with people who can't afford a yes man.

A long time ago, I gave up trying to understand how other people think.

Saving people, hunting things, the family business.

Cutting libraries during a recession is like cutting hospitals during a plague.

I realized then that the generations may change but the strength of our nation remains solid.

In America, everybody thinks they're an entrepreneur. That's the problem. It's not a title that anybody should call oneself.

I do think there's some aspect of being a novelist that is a little crazy making.

literature is an instrument of a culture, not a summary of it.

Let's do what we love and do a lot of it.

The waves belong to the water. Does the water belong to the waves?

I worked for a brief spell as a journalist, but soon I discovered that I didn't want to be a journalist - I wanted to be a historian.