No married man's ever made up his mind until he's heard what his wife has got to say about it.

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.

It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.

Life has loveliness to sell, all beautiful and splendid things, blue waves whitened on a cliff, soaring fire that sways and sings, and children's faces looking up, holding wonder like a cup.

I was uncomfortable writing fiction. My love was the personal essay rather than the novel.

I have been further enlightened by the conversation and correspondence of some illustrious Italians, whom I would gladly name, were I not afraid of exposing them to danger.

Principle of "Christian love": it insists upon being well paid in the end.

An attack on values is inevitably seen as an act of subversion.

For me, the glory of my first 25 years as a writer was I could put things off as long as I wanted.

Some people believe that - pardon my language - in order to be good Catholics, we should be like rabbits. No.

But genius is religious. It is a larger imbibing of the common heart.

However, research in the years that followed found that in many of its important features, African American Vernacular English was becoming not less, but more different from other dialects.