I believe our clever young man has intuited that while only the pursuit of happiness is promised to all Americans, unhappiness is guaranteed for many.

This feat I also had no idea how to accomplish, but ignorance had never stopped me from taking action before.

no one asks poor people if they want war.

All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.

...nothing is more precious than independence and freedom...

He responded with one of those looks of pity and amusement I was by now so used to getting, the kind that implied not only was my fly undone, but that there was nothing to see even if it was.

give a woman the chance to reject something else besides me

Quoting Nguyen Du - Talent and destiny are apt to feud.

Did we salivate for sadness, or had we only learned to enjoy what we were forced to eat?

Some animals could see in the dark, but it was only humans who deliberately sought out every possible route into the darkness of our own interiors.

While it is better to be loved than hated, it is also far better to be hated than ignored.

The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.

Women overrate the influence of fine dress and the latest fashions upon gentlemen; and certain it is, that the very expensiveness of such attire frightens the beholder from all ideas of matrimony.

I have to accept risk as a racing driver.

For Scotland has a double dose of the poison called heredity; the sense of blood in the aristocrat, the sense of doom in the Calvinist.

I want to reach that condensation of sensations that constitutes a picture.

I have a longing for fiction - to try to believe in it and to disappear into it.

People joked that Forster became more renowned with every book he did not write.

The best thing you can do is go away from this saying, 'I can do this too,' because it's all possible and I'm living proof.

There is unspeakable joy... for the person who knows release from guilt and the relief of forgiveness.

Women do not often have it in their power to give like men, but they forgive like Heaven.