Obeying orders just to obey is the mark of a person who has ceased to think. Remember, it is better to suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.

My English teacher said that a writer is the worst judge of his own work.

She's got the kind of ethereal, unselfconscious beauty some young girls possess that breaks your heart. Or theirs.

I am a ghost in a land of phantoms and forgotten nightmares.

Follow your heart. Just don't get lost.

They call it the drowning instinct. It's when drowning doesn't look like drowning. (pg. 241)

The things you think about when you're a hair's breath away from getting yourself killed.

We all have our fictions, little lies we tell ourselves to keep going from one day to the next.

The familiar was usually invisible; how many people really noticed everything they saw?

As the dog sprinted back, Jack said to the girl, "Sweetheart,honey, why do you have to be so hateful?" "Why not?" Ellie said. "It's not like being good ever got me anywhere.

What's the point of not taking chances? I don't know if I could stand living my whole life afraid.

Consider what really makes up your self-worth—like your caring heart or your ability to stand tall in the face of adversity

And what new life can emerge from a book. Any book, maybe.

The more the heart is nourished with happiness, the more it is insatiable.

Art is creative for the sake of realization, not for amusement... for transfiguration, not for the sake of play.

On stage it's just a wild setting - we have a big screen - hecklers, I'm fighting. It's entertainment, but I want to pierce [the audience's] souls and have them think about what I have to say.

So I think one can say on empirical grounds - not because of some philosophical principle - that you can't have democracy unless you have a market economy.

When you spend seven years with a group of people and suddenly you're not together, it's very jarring.

I taught Sandra Bullock when no one knew who she was. I talked her out of quitting. I put her in a showcase.

I've opened my mouth on a lot of subjects. And I thought the more prestige you get, I'd have the power to do what I like. It's not true.