He added that a Frenchman in the train had given him a great sandwich that so stank of garlic that he had been inclined to throw it at the fellow's head.

Higher than the beasts, lower than the angels, stuck in our idiot Eden.

And it was a most remarkable, a most moving glance, as if for a moment a lighthouse had looked at me.

The object of the novelist is to keep the reader entirely oblivious of the fact that the author exists - even of the fact he is reading a book.

Only two classes of books are of universal appeal. The very best and the very worst.

If you're going to have a character appear in a story long enough to sell a newspaper, he'd better be real enough that you can smell his breath.

What the artist wishes to do — as far as you are concerned — is to take you out of yourself. As far as he is concerned, he wishes to express himself.

Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you.

Why can't people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has the wrong thing.

Pride and reserve are not the only things in life; perhaps they are not even the best things. But if they happen to be your particular virtues you will go all to pieces if you let them go.

The first thing you have to consider when writing a novel is your story, and then your story - and then your story!

The most successful are not the most perfect, but the imperfect who dare to believe that they can despite the damning verdict.

Honesty is the only way with anyone, when you’ll be so close as to be living inside each other’s skins.

What to wear: An employee chooses. How to dress: His employer chose.

Even though Paul knew farewells were inevitable, he still formed deep relationships.

Help other people, help themselves

Part of Steve's job was to drum into us how important what we were doing actually would be to the world

Even during my father's 1984 gubernatorial campaign, it was, 'Do you want to grow up and be governor one day?' 'No. I am four.'

The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was 'sublime and beautiful,'the more deeply I sank into my mire and the more ready I was to sink in it altogether.

I think we just have to remember who the heck we are and speak to who we are and what we believe.

I think that the legitimacy of the court would be undermined in any case if the court made a decision based on its perception of public opinion.