On 24 October 1944 Planet Earth was following its orbit about the sun as it has obediently done for nearly five billion years.

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.

What you experience is the accumulation of what you have thought about and wished for.

To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.

One prisoner of conscience is one too many.

The one woman who never gives herself is your free woman, who is always giving herself.

Possessing the ideal makes a person nervous: you sense the inevitable decline just ahead.

Lowly, with a broken neck, The crocus lays her cheek to mire.

Misfortunes have their dignity and their redeeming power.

Kindness is gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us.

I earned my first steady paycheck watering rose bushes at a nursery for a dollar an hour.

It's never a good idea to organize society in a way that depletes the energy of half the population.