A losing trade, I assure you, sir: literature is a drug.

There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?

Translation is at best an echo.

If you must commit suicide ... always contrive to do it as decorously as possible; the decencies, whether of life or of death, should never be lost sight of.

There are no countries in the world less known by the British than those selfsame British Islands.

Good ale, the true and proper drink of Englishmen. He is not deserving of the name of Englishman who speaketh against ale, that is good ale.

We must walk before we run.

Youth will be served, every dog has his day, and mine has been a fine one.

It has been said that idleness is the parent of mischief, which is very true; but mischief itself is merely an attempt to escape from the dreary vacuum of idleness.

Never ride your horse more than five-and-thirty miles a day, always taking more care of him than of yourself; which is right and reasonable, seeing as how the horse is the best animal of the two.

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

Life is nothing short of a phenomenon. In every sense life is mysterious and unfathomable.

In Malta, the Wars of Religion reached their climax. If both sides believed that they saw Paradise in the bright sky above them, they had a close and very intimate knowledge of Hell.

Literature sucks you into another psyche. So the creation of empathy necessarily influences how you'll behave to other people.

The gap between brute power and human need continues to grow, as the power fattens on the same faulty technology that intensifies the need.

Directing is more like you're being a psychologist and you're kind of analyzing the situation and evaluating each person for their idiosyncrasies.

This is a highly reliable power source. Being a large credit card processor, doing $6 million an hour in transactions, our computers have to work.

You look like a ghost," Bailey says. He can think of no better way to describe it. "You appear the same way to me, so which of us is real?

Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without comment is a wonderful social grace.

It's probably a twelve-day. He needs two days to wake up.

In Invisible there's a lot about childhood, the death of the brother and then the relationship between the brother and sister.