I still think it's really quite wonderful when I read a sentence of mine and it has that quality of lastingness.

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing - which is never an easy thing to do.

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

One isn’t born one’s self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people’s ideas – and you have to work through it all.

Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision.

It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling.

The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.

Home is, I suppose just a child's idea. A house at night, and a lamp in the house. A place to feel safe.

One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.

The world is always in movement.

All the details of the life and the quirks and the friendships can be laid out for us, but the mystery of the writing will remain. No amount of documentation, however fascinating, can take us there.

As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. I Peter 4:2

A flower does not diminish in beauty, no matter how many weeds envy it.

Magic is the word illiterates use for phenomena they can’t explain.

When you step up to being excellent, use hard work and determination as the powerful force they are. By also being devoted and persistent, over time it will reward you with sparkling success.

The Fukushima nuclear complex went on to become the worst man-made engineering disaster in all of human history, outside of war.

I was ecstatic when they re-named "French fries" as "freedom fries." Grown men and women in positions of power in the U.S. government showing themselves as idiots.

One of the major problems with long-term deep space human flight is the requirement for radiation shielding.

As a child I wanted to become an architect.

No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. Not when the enemy is me.