As a rule, one must write a great many words before one learns to write well.

A well-composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way.

We do not judge great art. It judges us.

... passion, once unleashed, has a way of unleashing other passions -- a principle adhered to as firmly by the police force of any large modern city as by the Greek tragedians.

A first book often has enough material in it for half a dozen.

It was strange how you could never form any conclusion from what women said. It was not that they did not know what they were talking about, but you never drew the right conclusions.

The society of girls is a very delightful thing, Copperfield. It's not professional, but it's very delightful.

The Christian take on Hellfire seems less dramatic than the Muslim vision, which I grew up with, but Christian magical thinking appeals to me no more than my mother's angels and djinns.

Everybody thinks I'm at death's door, but I'm not. There's nothing seriously wrong with me, and my heart is in 100 percent working order. Anything else you may hear is a damn lie!

For non-state terror actors, the United States must develop the ability, no matter how difficult, to track down and incapacitate those responsible and do it rapidly.

The heavens and the earth, the woods and the wayside, teem with instruction and knowledge to the curious and thoughtful.

Composition is frozen improvisation.

All advertising advertises advertising.

When the whole world starts behaving like a big family, protecting and caring each other, the world will become a good place to live!

Millions of human vermin swarm sweating along the night-arched cavernous roads. (Happily rapid chemical processes will disintegrate them all.

Tis well when we dare not do a thing we think is not good and fair; but not so well when we think a thing not good and fair because we dare not do it.