What has happened by chance is often difficult to repeat when it is sought deliberately. Chance is a genius.

The occurrence of an evil thought is an affliction; not to continue it is the remedy.

Zen is not, in my view, philosophy or mysticism. It is simply a practice of readjustment of nervous activity. That is, it restores the distorted nervous system to its normal functioning.

You invoke a new futurewhen you envision your pastin the light of your present.

Every fanatic or enemy of virtue is not at liberty to misrepresent the greatest geniuses and most heroic defenders of all that is valuable in this mortal world.

Stay home and the crooks win. They get the night, by default and concession, the night which should rightly belong to all of us.

The way you build trust with your people is by being forthright and clear with them from day one. You may think people are fooled when you tell them what they want to hear. They are not fooled.

A story can only be contained in a book.

The new law will create inflation whenever the trusts want inflation. From now on depressions will be scientifically created.

The Mississippi is not the only river. There's the Tallahatchie and the Big Black. People have been put in the river year after year, these things been happening.

A pack of jackasses led by a lion is superior to a pack of lions led by a jackass.

Speak of the moderns without contempt and of the ancients without idolatry; judge them all by their merits, but not by their age

My first published book, Story of a Girl, was the fourth book I wrote.