In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.

Teach a parrot the terms 'supply and demand' and you've got an economist.

He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything.

Long stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very May; but at length the season of summer does come.

No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence.

Endurance is patience concentrated.

I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.

Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom.

A strong mind always hopes, and has always cause to hope.

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.

Of all acts of man repentance is the most divine. The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none.

He's like a man with a fork, in a world of soup. (about his brother Liam)

I think I would rather have a cat than a sweetheart, after all. They are less trouble, and even the handsomest sweetheart is sadly lacking in fur.

Religion is separate from the institution of the state.

The principles of my works... are the extinction of expression, permanent covering and contemplative tranquillity... My ideal is the completely dark picture, full of some overwhelming silence.

Strength, strength alone, is honorable, the German nation clamors in its majesty. But since it is hard to muster strength so suddenly, they have to make do with boorishness.

I'm aware the fans in the U.S. can be less forgiving...I'll just have to do my best to please them.

I can look at my books with pleasure from a distance. Four feet is close enough.

The iPhone is not and never was a phone. It is a pocket-sized computer that obviates the phone. The iPhone is to cell phones what the Mac was to typewriters.

To this day, The Duke and I remains particularly close to my heart; I felt it was the novel in which my writing took a huge leap forward.

Food is not just fuel. Food is about family, food is about community, food is about identity. And we nourish all those things when we eat well.