A character who is thought-out is not born, he or she is contrived. A born character is round, a thought-out character is flat.

[A] pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.

The only thing I want is something I can't have; and that is to know if, 100 years from now, people will still buy my books.

I have a strong moral sense - by my standards.

Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.

Measure your minds height by the shadow it casts.

Being broke is not a disgrace, it is only a catastrophe.

Every Sherlock Holmes story has at least one marvelous scene.

Sarcasm is not the rapier of wit its wielders seem to believe it to be, but merely a club: it may, by dint of brute force, occasionally raise bruises, but it never cuts or pierces.

The more you put in your brain, the more it will hold - if you have one.

I don't approve of open fires. You can't think, or talk or even make love in front of a fireplace. All you can do is stare at it.

Happiness is found in doing, not merely possessing.

Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God.

Paris shook his head."Do you think I would teach just anyone to fight me to the death? I want you to be my wife. My one and only wife.

When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens.

I think one of the great disasters (in military history) is the way that the Second World War has become the defining reference point for every crisis and every conflict.

If you can't be funny, be interesting.

I'm not politically correct.

More than anything, I think the best thing you can do as an artist is just stay as true to yourself as possible and hope that your fan base will appreciate that.

Love opens the doors into everything, as far as I can see, including and perhaps most of all, the door into one's own secret, and often terrible and frightening, real self.

If ever (as that ever may be near) you meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy, then shall you know the wounds invisible that love's keen, arrows make.