It was the silent time before dawn, along the shores of what had been one of the most beautiful lakes in southern Africa.

I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.

Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today because if you enjoy it today, you can do it again tomorrow.

The really great writers are people like Emily Brontë who sit in a room and write out of their limited experience and unlimited imagination.

Scientists dream about doing great things. Engineers do them.

I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts. But I'm one of the world's great rewriters.

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.

If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home.

If your book doesn't keep you up nights when you are writing it, it won't keep anyone up nights reading it.

An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.

O words are poor receipts for what time hath stole away

It must be most dangerous then to be a man. It is indeed, madame, and but few survive it

We love to chew the cud of a foregone vision; to collect the scattered rays of a brighter phantasm, or act over again, with firmer nerves, the sadder nocturnal tragedies.

Pain is temporary, glory...lasts forever!

I get off on anticipating and waiting much more than I get off on the actual event.

An unhappy gentleman, resolving to wed nothing short of perfection, keeps his heart and hand till both get so old and withered that no tolerable woman will accept them.

The mere athlete becomes too much of a savage.

It's amazing to me that they're cutting physical education programs in the school systems.

When you appreciate the good, the good appreciates.

Every time Bush talks about trust it makes chills run up and down my spine. The way he has trampled on the truth is a travesty of the American political system.