Reading, like writing, is a creative act. If readers only bring a narrow range of themselves to the book, then they'll only see their narrow range reflected in it.

The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.

The magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing.

We have not yet arrived, but every point at which we stop requires a re-definition of our destination.

When you can imagine you begin to create and when you begin to create you realize that you can create a world that you prefer to live in, rather than a world that you're suffering in.

We have fallen into this very mean description of humanity. Naturalism in fiction is too reductive in its definition of human beings.

Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.

There ought to be three traditions in the art of humanity: the realistic, the visionary and the wild.

Stories are the secret reservoir of values: change the stories individuals and nations live by and tell themselves, and you change the individuals and nations.

The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time.

What you see is what you make. What you see in a people is what you eventually create in them.

Success is working with enthusiasm and ambition, living with joy and kindness, and going toward a life of ultimate service and happiness.

The truth about your own life is not always easy to accept, and sometimes hasn't even occurred to you.

I've always been lucky enough to have great audiences. It has been quite a life.

Do not think I do not know that Cecily wants you to return home with her. And do not think I do not know that you remain for Jem's sake." "And yours," he said before he could stop himself.

Nothing overshadows truth so much as authority.

But what was the point of living so quietly you made no noise at all?

I think that you have to restrain yourself from googling your name and have other hobbies and desires and wants. You do a million things. You go to school, you write, you read, you blog.

Don't think you have to be solemn to meditate. To meditate, well, you have to smile a lot.

Finland is a rich country. What have they got? They got Nokia phones and plywood. How'd they get so rich? Because they're free.

I didn't really say everything I said.