I just focus on getting the first scene right, with a few lines about the overall plot, and then the book grows organically.

The telling of a story, like virtually everything in this life, was always made all the easier by a cup of tea.

Be content with who you are and where you are, and do whatever you can do to bring to others such contentment, and joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself.

There is room in history for all of us.

Manners are the basic building blocks of civil society.

I see no point in being despondent. We might as well enjoy ourselves during our brief tenure of this life.

How many of us are happy to be exactly where we are at any moment?...only the completely happy think that they are in the correct place.

Talking about pumpkins doesn't make them grow.

We think the world is ours forever, but we are little more than squatters.

There are old mycologists and there are bold mycologists, but there are no old, bold mycologists.

A life without stories would be no life at all. And stories bound us, did they not, one to another, the living to the dead, people to animals, people to the land?

As soon as you say it about a record, you're like some little zombie in a funny dungeon.

People hate to see their vices depicted, but vice is terrible and it should be depicted.

If we want to be better than normal we must move from good intentions to what I call God intentions.

The nice thing about money is that you can do good things with it. I still feel like if something needs to be done or we need to raise money for someone on death row, we can find ways to do it.

And each man stands with his face in the light. Of his own drawn sword, ready to do what a hero can.

In adolescence you have to separate yourself and establish your identity. So, being very independent anyway, I took charge.

Industry is not a collection of machines and tools and buildings. It is a social entity that has the responsibility of realizing the happiness of those who work in it.

The problem is, we have yet to convince the Taliban they are fellow passengers on spaceship Earth.