It is a nuisance that knowledge can only be acquired by hard work.

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.

It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

Walk in the light pathways.

Don't be afraid to fail big, to dream big.

You cannot cure sclerosis, but you can forget it.

I remain a fan of my friend Bret Easton Ellis's 'American Psycho.' I think as a book about New York in the '80s it was pretty excellent.

In L.A., though, people get off busses calling themselves actors, so many are really not professionals.

If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything.

Many who would not take the last cookie would take the last lifeboat.

My wife thought I deserved it, but I always thought the Nobel a Western prize.

The agony of love destroyed often leaves us swearing never to love again.

You have to protect your writing time. You have to protect it to the death.