The soul cannot be humbled by fasts and prayer; it must be broken by mortal sin to experience forgiveness of sin and rise to a state of grace. Otherwise, religion is nothing but dead logic.

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.

Success is never so interesting as struggle

Of all the bewildering things about a new country, the absence of human landmarks is one of the most depressing and disheartening.

The sky was a midnight-blue, like warm, deep, blue water, and the moon seemed to lie on it like a water-lily, floating forward with an invisible current.

The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor.

It takes a great deal of experience to become natural.

Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen.

Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky.

The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.

The end is nothing; the road is all.

If you want to kill any idea in the world, get a committee working on it.

You know one of the most encouraging things about faith? It pleases God.

People came as immigrants from all over the world, and Hindu and Muslim and Buddhist and Sikh communities became part of the landscape of the U.S.

A man whose life has been dishonourable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death.

Joy is increased by spreading it to others.

I have a feeling that we are doing better in the war than the people have been told.

The book 'Do You!' is about your inner voice. And when you connect to that voice then you - then the freedom comes. And we're only here to be happy. So happy makes money. Money doesn't make happy.

I used to dirt bike a lot. I can't do that anymore. Can't eat a whole lot of chocolate anymore, either. I can't be in 'Indiana Jones' and be a fatso!

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

Then you have people coming up like Malcolm Bradbury, a relatively young writer who deals with the academic scene and deals with it, I think, brilliantly.