A novelist's characters must be with him as he lies down to sleep, and as he wakes from his dreams. He must learn to hate them and to love them.

An author must be nothing if he do not love truth; a barrister must be nothing if he do.

When the ivy has found its tower, when the delicate creeper has found its strong wall, we know how the parasite plants grow and prosper.

Never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning.

Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes.

What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?...Was ever anything so civil?

The habit of reading is the only one I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

It has now become the doctrine of a large clan of politicians that political honesty is unnecessary, slow, subversive of a man's interests, and incompatible with quick onward movement.

There is no royal road to learning; no short cut to the acquirement of any art.

Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.

Advising gives a great illusion of superiority

Our image is here and will for ever stay, and there is comfort in knowing that the memory of our lives will always be there, traveling among the stars.

You don't need to play every ball but every ball needs your judgement.

PS. Docendo discimus. (Latin. By teaching, we learn.)

Someday, men will visit ideas instead of places.

I'm a fighter for love. I guess it's just that thing of standing up for what you believe in and what and who you love. And any opportunity to avoid people fighting about things the better, really.

The teacher will have a certain imprint, and each teacher imprints differently. Ultimately the imprint of the teacher is a limitation that you will have to overcome in your final stages of knowledge.

We have come dangerously close to accepting the homeless situation as a problem that we just can't solve.

I love theme parks but I'm a real chicken on rides. I'd rather invent scary rides for my books than go on them for real.

I weaned myself on the nostalgia equivalent of methadone (less addictive, less obvious, less likely to make you crazy): missing what I had never had.