The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

Twere better far That gods should quaff their nectar merrily, And men sing out the day like grasshoppers, So may they haply lull the watchful thunder.

It's better to write about things you feel than about things you know about.

Her very frowns are fairer far Than smiles of other maidens are.

To force a female to do things in male fashion is not equal opportunity, it is distorted idealism.

Oh, where is man That mortal god, that hath no mortal kin Or like on earth? Shall Nature's orator The interpreter of all her mystic strains Shall he be mute in Nature's jubilee?

With all your music, loud and lustily, With every dainty joy of sight and smell, Prepare a banquet meet to entertain The Lord of Thunder, that hath set you free From old oppression.

If we take care of the inches, we will not have to worry about the miles.

It is never difficult to see images – when the principle of the image is embedded in the soul.

Swans sing before they die - 'twere no bad thing Should certain persons die before they sing.

We discover and invent new ways of finding out the same old things.

But he'll never be fully recognised, because Scots literature these days is all about complaining and moaning and being injured in one's soul.

You can make up a quarrel, but it will always show where it was patched.

Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much.

I get to meet writers, and I love writers.

The nature of things is in the habit of concealing itself.

Whether the Virgin Mary existed, I don't know. But the human need for her to appear in tortilla, that's what inspires my interest.

The people of California clearly have the right to prohibit the sale of a product that is the result of abject animal abuse.

The more materiality there is, the less humanity there is

Time is life. Anyone who wastes my time is killing me. Please don't!

Books shouldn't be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful.