Books shouldn't be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful.

My dear young fellow,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said gently, 'there are a whole lot of things in this world of ours you haven't started wondering about yet.

If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.

I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in a human being. I'll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else.

Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.

I shot down some German planes and I got shot down myself, crashing in a burst of flames and crawling out, getting rescued by brave soldiers.

The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it.

I was a fighter pilot, flying Hurricanes all round the Mediterranean. I flew in the Western Desert of Libya, in Greece, in Syria, in Iraq and in Egypt.

Do you know what breakfast cereal is made of? It's made of all those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners!

We all remember people the way we want to remember them.

After I leave the earth my work is anyway going to belong to the world for centuries but till that time I want to work freely.

The soft contralto notes of a woman's voice are born in the immediate region of the heart.

Don't ever write a novel unless it hurts like a hot turd coming out.

Pain and trials are almost constant companions, but never enemies. They drive me into His sovereign arms. There He takes my disappointments and works everything together for good.

If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.

[My mother] always said I was beautiful and I finally believed her at some point.

Deep listening is experiencing heightened awareness or expanded awareness of sound and of silence, of quiet, and of sounding - making sounds.

All of us are playing roles, and there's nothing wrong with playing roles because we have to live in this world - the problem is only when we believe in those roles.

I was on the whole considerably discouraged by my school days... It is not pleasant to feel oneself so completely outclassed and left behind at the very beginning of the race.