Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I wondered about her chicken-and-egg relationship with Dad. Which came first? Her helplessness or his controlling?
If Jacob was right and clothes were costumes and makeup a mask, then our attitudes and habits must be our shields.
I sat up in bed. My T-shirt was soaking wet. My pillow was wet. My hair was wet. And my room was sticky and humid.
The mortal world is in a state of Beautiful Chaos and destruction, which will ultimately lead to an exquisite end.
A lot of novels use crime as a stepping stone to talk about greater issues. So I just think of myself as a writer.
The extraordinary ability of a woman to forget is not the same as the talent of a lady not to be able to remember.
The image I had was very clear, and so in that way The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane began like other books.
In a dark time, doors will sometimes magically open and let us step inside to the warmth and light of a community.
... if we have a dollar to spend on some wild excess, we shall spend it on a book, not on asparagus out of season.
Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different.
I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing.
There are always these moments in life when the limits of suffering are reached and we become heroes and heroines.
You bat your baby blues at tall, dark, and gruesome, and next thing you know, he's trailing you like a lost puppy.
We haven't had crime writers, and for a long time in the Republic, we didn't seem to have a crime problem as such.
She wanted to cause him pain for taking a place in her heart she wouldn't have given him if she'd known the truth.
Luck is not the hand of God.... Luck is the way the wind swirls and the dust settles eons after God has passed by.
Historians in the future, in my opinion, will congratulate us on very little other than our clowning and our jazz.
Well, it's practically over, thank God - I'm 83, there won't be that much more of it to put up with I don't think!
You say what you have to say. But you have to learn to say it in such a way that the reader can see what you mean.
That's what is was to be young - to be enthusiastic rather than envious about the good work other people could do.
Perhaps I am the turtle, able to live simply anywhere, even underwater for short periods, with my home on my back.
I don't plot my books rigidly, follow a preconceived structure. A novel mustn't be a closed system - it's a quest.
Nothing helps you sleep at night so much as being absolutely certain that you're right, and everyone else is evil.
Yes, that man acted ugly," she told us in plain English. "But throwing more ugliness back at him ain't the answer.
It was like looking at a knot, knowing it was a knot, but not knowing how to untie it. I had no map for this life.
British crime stories tend to be very internal, psychological, claustrophobic, very limited in terms of geography.
It was 1989, and the word 'Muslim' wasn't even really used in Britain at the time; you were either black or Asian.
One can no more approach people without love than one can approach bees without care. Such is the quality of bees.
Beautiful as seemed mama's face, it became more lovely when she smiled and seemed to enliven everything about her.
The earth is the general and equal possession of all humanity and therefore cannot be the property of individuals.
In proceeding to the dining-room, the gentleman gives one arm to the lady he escorts--it is unusual to offer both.
I don't think I'm a bigot or a racist. But I have a truck, a Blazer. I drink beer. There are some women I do hate.
The rules of magic, my dear, are best not discusses. For once we understand the illusion, we no longer believe it.
Could it be that by protecting our kids from unhappiness as children, we’re depriving them of happiness as adults?
I guess what led to me writing 'Holes' was having moved to Texas in 1991, and it was sort of my reaction to Texas.
Men are not to be judged by what they do not know, but by what they know, and by the manner in which they know it.
It is no great advantage to possess a quick wit, if it is not correct; the perfection is not speed but uniformity.
Subjectivity is my middle name, a trick memory is my pack mule, and self-contradiction is my trusty old jackknife.
In general, I think, human beings are happiest at table when they are very young, very much in love or very alone.
Happy the land where the writers are sad, the merchants satisfied, the rich melancholic, and the populace content.
Reading is a creative activity. You have to visualize the characters, you have to hear what the voices sound like.
I'm quite happy for that smile, because Dad told me once you should be grateful for the gifts that are the rarest.
Because I knew it wasn't for forever." Grace touched his hair and he bent his head to kiss her, quiet as a secret.
I've been waiting for you forever." "Forever' as in several hundred years, or forever as in since my lesson began?
It's rude to stare, but the great thing about staring at a sedated person is that they don't know you're doing it.
Whoever prays for those who hurt him lays the demons low; but he who opposes his affronter is bound to the demons.
As water and fire oppose one another when combined, so are self-justification and humility opposed to one another.
When the mind forgets the purpose of Christian life, then even the clear fulfillment of virtue becomes profitless.
I would have felt more comfortable on a girder fifty floors above the street, catching white-hot rivets in a pail.
How different other families were, the shape of them, the things they presumed, the children that grew up in them.