I didn’t want to know that the monster that lived under your bed when you were a kid not only really is there but used to have a few beers with your dad.

The story is always better than your ability to write it. My belief about this is that if you ever get to the point that you think you've done a story justice, you're in the wrong business.

When they finished laughing they were on their way to being not just friends, but the dearest of friends, the sort of friends whose lives are shaped by the friendship.

Because she was a princess she had a pegasus.

The story is always better than your ability to write it.

I advise those who want to become writers to study veterinary medicine, which is easier. You don't want to be a writer unless you have no choice - and if you have no choice, good luck to you.

There are things you don't want to know you can do

My capacity for invention is flash hot stark, I thought. Sucker sunshade. Disembodied radar-reconnaissance. Not to mention Bitter Chocolate Death and Killer Zebras. Pity about the rest of me.

Perhaps it is a human thing, to look upon such beauty and fail to encompass it.

[Harry] had always suffered from a vague restlessness, a longing for adventure that she told herself severely was the result of reading too many novels when she was a small child.

It is a much more straightforward thing to be a dog, and a dog's love, once given, is not reconsidered.

When someone is unkind, respond with kindness.

I liked being a kid. I liked being a student.

I always loved going to Hawai'i; it was very, very special.

Big thinkers are specialists in creating positive, forward-looking, optimistic pictures in their own minds and in the minds of others.

The Democrats are obstructionists. And you know what that's hurting? It's hurting America.

In cities no one is quiet but many are lonely; in the country, people are quiet but few are lonely.

I try to keep up, and the scientific perspective is always part of my creative approach.

When I had the honor to be a second lieutenant, I ate dry bread, but I never let anyone know that I was poor.

The first step to greatness is to be honest.

We’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good; we do the best we know.