Everything that we encounter leaves traces behind. Everything contributes imperceptibly to our education

Live each day as if your life had just begun.

Correction does much, but encouragement does more.

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. Whatever you think you can do, or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, power and grace.

Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.

At the moment of commitment the entire universe conspires to assist you.

Courage is the commitment to begin without any guarantee of success.

If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.

....it seems to me that a pleasurable Contemplation of Beauty has certainly an immeasurably greater value than mere Consciousness of Pleasure.

A man who walks with God always gets to his destination.

Commercial fiction writing – where my bread is buttered – is fairly straightforward. The writing is simply efficiency and story. The more you have of one the less you need of the other.

It's never better to make somebody poorer, even if they're rich.

When you have a lot of hits and your career starts to go down, but then your music starts to slowly go up again.

I'd already put on a bit of weight before I got pregnant.

I've made peace with myself. Good for you. That's the hardest war of all to win. Didn't say I won. Just stopped fighting.

The splendid empire of Charles the Fifth was erected upon the grave of liberty.

There's no such thing as a person who has to go away.