Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
People think that children don't know anything. It's enough to make you wonder if grownups were ever children once upon a time.
It's usually easier for me to begin writing in a character's voice if that person is different from me in some significant way.
As human beings, we are nothing but the stories we live and die by — so you’d better be careful what stories you tell yourself.
In our time together, you claimed a special place in my heart, one I'll carry with me forever and that no one can ever replace.
and in that instant, nothing else mattered. Not the song, not the place, not the other couples around him. Only this, only her.
People were destined for one another; that's the romantic idea that young girls have, and I guess part of me still believes it.
She squinted up at him. "But I haven't always made good decisions." Pastor Harris smiled. "All that shows is that you're human.
He finally understood that God's presence was everywhere, at all times, and was experienced by everyone at one time or another.
I generally don't involve myself in giving the actors some tips on acting. At the same time, I don't do that with the director.
I don't even feel as if I'm the center of my own world, so how am I supposed to feel as though I'm the center of anyone else's?
You'll remember someone who broke your heart, and you'll think to yourself, 'Oh yes, I remember how that feels.' But you can't.
Not for the first time in my life, and certainly not for the last, a self-righteous gloom had edged out all semblance of logic.
There used to be one writer rather than a team of writers. It's the old line about a camel being a horse designed by committee.
I like stirring the pot - I think it's part of my duty, to shake people up a bit - make them look at things in a different way.
Logicians have but ill defined As rational the human mind; Reason, they say, belongs to man, But let them prove it if they can.
The wretch condemn'd with life to part, Still, still on hope relies; And every pang that rends the heart Bids expectation rise.
Life can't be all that bad,' i'd think from time to time. 'Whatever happens, i can always take a long walk along the Bosphorus.
Satanic Verses is a despicable book that could not have been written by a person who wished to behave decently and responsibly.
You write your first novel with the desperation of the damned. You're afraid that you'll never write anything else, ever again.
About my books, that's all that I think the public has, in its normal way, to know. My private life is, by definition, private.
We do not need to be able to say what "human nature" is in order to be able to say that some training is "against human nature.
Mockery when done without prejudice or discretion, can be a form of respect. It's the closest we'll ever come to true equality.
It once occured to me that literature - all art really - is either talking to people about God, or talking to God about people.
All my life had been dominated by a sign, often invisible but no less real for that, which said: 'Reserved for Europeans Only.'
You're so young... Are you sure that's what you want your life to be, forever and ever? That job? That career? That girlfriend?
I think there was, and there is, a real Commonwealth culture. It's different. America doesn't really feel to be a part of that.
I don't pretend to see the path, but I know it's there all the same. One day, we'll look back and wonder how we ever missed it.
A lot can be said for the infinite mercies of God, but the smarts of a good pharmacist, when you get down to it, is worth more.
Things that happen, however painful they are at the time, do not matter very much for long. Only how we behave to them matters.
Being or nothing, that is the question. Ascending, descending, coming, going, a man does so much that in the end he disappears.
I had a Tourette's period. And obsessive compulsive disorder. Things would get in my brain that I couldn't get out of my brain.
We will live with racism for ever. But senses of self, senses of belonging, senses of us and of others? Those are up for grabs.
Whatever you're working on, take small bites. The task will not be overwhelming if you can reduce it to its smallest component.
There are a lot of truths in this world. When it rains it pours. It's always darkest before the dawn. He who smelt it dealt it.
Don't try to write too much in a single session. One thousand words a day is quite enough. Stop after about four or five hours.
When your toil has been a pleasure, you have not earned money merely, but money, health, delight, and moral profit, all in one.
Trusty, dusky, vivid, true, With eyes of gold and bramble-dew, Steel-true and blade-straight, The great artificer made my mate.
Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.
A civilization in which there is not a continuous controversy about important issues is on the way to totalitarianism and death
Uncorrupted man, with God's blessing, advances across the fields of the universe as though he were walking down a country lane.
All real fantasy is serious. Only faked fantasy is not serious. That is why it is so wrong to impose faked fantasy on children.
Idolatry is not simply worshiping a stone image; idolatry is any concept of God that reduces Him to less than who He really is.
You don't that often see writers being sought out when there are matters of great moment to discuss. And I think that's a loss.
The Muslim population in India is, largely speaking, not radicalised. From the beginning, they were always very secular-minded.
It's the greatest of Southern honors . . . to have one's name incorporated into a family tree. It's an honor not lightly given.
I knew I had to write about Canada. I just could not find in literature any examples of the immigrant experience that I've had.
Every sickness has an alien quality, a feeling of invasion and loss of control that is evident in the language we use about it.
We all live in a culture that is continually isolating feminine and masculine aspects, even when they're not related to people.
In my family, we were on again off again Unitarians, partly because my father, raised Roman Catholic, had had enough of church.
Often the presence of mind and energy of a person remote from the spotlight decide the course of history for centuries to come.