One needs no particular talent to be polite. On the contrary, being nice is what's left when you've failed at everything else.

I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy

I don't pretend reality is the same for everyone.

Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother, but the rest of the time there was none. This story is about one of those other times.

For me to see is to read. It has always been that way.

Of course I loved books more than people.

Boys do not leave their boyhood behind when they leave off their school uniform.

A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth.

But silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grown pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you.

When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic, yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one ever expects to be fulfilled.

A story so cherished it has to be dressed in casualness to disguise its significance in case the listener turned out to be unsympathetic.

I'm told there's no going back. So I'm choosing forward.

Conquer fear and you have conquered all.

Women get more unhappy the more they try to liberate themselves.

A girl without braidsis like a city without bridges.

I don't want [to work] people who agree with me. I want honest, spirited, hard-working, patriotic people who want to be part of a team, the American team.

If your sleight of hand causes you to break eye contact with your audience, it is too advanced for your skill level.

Paraguay has had a U.S. supermarket boss as its ambassador for a while. He did the job well. He was there because he wanted to be there. Rather than the British diplomat who didn't want to be there.

But the idea that women can't take care of themselves still permeates our culture.

We must seek ways to solve difficulties such as hatred, envy and jealousy.

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again.