If you lay a hand on me I'll ram your testicles so far up inside your abdomen it'll take a heart surgeon to get them out.

Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.

In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him.

I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it

Ender Wiggin must believe that no matter what happens, no adult will ever, ever step in to help him in any way.

I need you to be clever, Bean. I need you to think of solutions to problems we haven't seen yet. I want you to try things that no one has ever tried because they're absolutely stupid.

Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden.

We're like the wicked witch. We promise gingerbread, then eat the little brats alive.

Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.

There's only one thing that will make them stop hating you. And that's being so good at what you do that they can't ignore you

There is more good writing and good acting in any ten minutes of Twister than in, say, all of Citizen Kane.

Ultimately everything depends on the quality of the individual, but our fatally short-sighted age thinks only in terms of large numbers and mass organizations...

I have every sympathy with the American who was so horrified by what he had read of the effects of smoking that he gave up reading.

Californians are worried about whether they will have a job along with ballooning federal spending and deficits.

One of the most important things a gardener does is look. The rewards are immeasurable.

The Penguin books are splendid value for sixpence, so splendid that if other publishers had any sense they would combine against them and suppress them.

After you've been away, people's expectations are like, "Well, you better have something to show for it. Tell us why you've been away so long!"

Africa the continent is not just what we see on the news. It's... not AIDS, and it's not just war and poverty. It's so much more. It's an abundant continent, and Botswana is an abundant place.

If you grew up in a lower-income community, or less well-off, the belief is that the way to change that circumstance is through education.

Blaming your faults on your nature does not change the nature of your faults. After growing up on a dairy farm, everything in life seemed easy

My mind is like a gyre and odd juxtapositions happen.