Do the children who prefer books set in the real, ordinary, workaday world ever read as obsessively as those who would much rather be transported into other worlds entirely?

Buying a book is not about obtaining a possession, but about securing a portal.

If we weigh the significance of a book by the effect it has on its readers, then the great children's books suddenly turn up very high on the list.

The closer and more completely you can come to explaining what a work of art means, the less like art it seems.

Fire will burn any human body it touches, and starvation will waste it, but stories are not so predictable in their effects.

because we all know that the books we’ve loved best are seldom the ones we esteem the most highly

To pursue happiness for its own sake is the surest way to lose it.

Two decades of virtually uninterrupted fighting had made even the most dignified structures appear drunken, wounded, or lost. The entire city seemed to affirm the notion that warfare is a disease.

Do not think that your magic ring will work if you are not yourself Solomon.

I leave Hollywood, I go somewhere else and make some music, and then, when I have to go back to work, I try and take as much that I get from outside Hollywood back with me.

In my entire life I have never seen a player of such quality and personality at such a young age, particularly wearing the 'heavy' shirt of one of the world's great clubs.

Humanity has been passing through a gray and desolate time of confusion.

Much of outcomes research is a systematic attempt to exploit what is known and make it better.

Every rabbit-nation will find its tyrant! Oppressors are the destiny of coward and submissive nations!

It's a very important skill set for an actor to be able to bring the humor into any moment, whether you're doing drama or comedy.

No one will ever win a 5,000-meter by running an easy two miles. Not against me.