I have heard, as everybody else has, of a spirit's haunting a house ; but I have had my own personal experience of a house's haunting a spirit.

Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service.

The evening advanced. The shadows lengthened. The waters of the lake grew pitchy black. The gliding of the ghostly swans became rare and more rare.

My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody.

The books - the generous friends who met me without suspicion - the merciful masters who never used me ill!

Let the music speak to us of tonight, in a happier language than our own.

We had our breakfasts--whatever happens in a house, robbery or murder, it doesn't matter, you must have your breakfast.

Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.

I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of work of fiction should be to tell a story.

Your tears come easy, when you're young, and beginning the world. Your tears come easy, when you're old, and leaving it. I burst out crying.

Pedants, who have the least knowledge to be proud of, are impelled most by vanity.

Light will someday split you open

But above all, an author must write passionately and edit passionately.

Of all the works of civilization that interfere with the natural water distribution system, irrigation has been by far the most pervasive and powerful.

The point is the doing of them rather than the accomplishments . There is no actor but the action; there is no experiencer but the experience.

The middle course is the best.

In 1984 nobody knew what cable was going to be. It was there, but you didn't know where it was going.

RAM: This gives guys a way of deciding whose computer has the biggest, studliest memory. That's important, because the more memory a computer has, the faster it can produce error messages.

I go around the world, working with all kinds of people who I love.

I like a book better if I can't predict what's going to happen.