Religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.

True education flowers at the point when delight falls in love with responsibility.

You cannot change what you are, only what you do.

That's the duty of the old, to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.

After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.

One curious thing about growing up is that you don't only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents' and grandparents' lives come to you.

We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.

I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are.

If you want something you can have it, but only if you want everything that goes with it, including all the hard work and the despair, and only if you're willing to risk failure.

Read like a butterfly, write like a bee.

Just finished 'Secrecy' - truly enthralling both as a love story and as a tale of suspense - but much more than both.

Never compare your grief.You - and only youwalk your path.

It is easy to replace man, and it will take no great time, when Nature has lapsed, to replace Nature.

When I'm explaining something to you, if I'm being long-winded, and twisty in a non-productive way, I could make you feel vaguely insulted. And you'd have a right to be.

Even Michelangelo got paid for doing the Sistine Chapel. To those artists who say they're doing it for the love of art, I say: Get real.

Whatever it takes to stop someone from abusing animals is certainly morally acceptable

Scary movies scare me. The Exorcist is really scary.

One day we're going to watch people fight to the death, like Roman times. Instead of being in a coliseum, we're going to watch it on TV.

A man must thank his defects, and stand in some terror of his talents.

I am trying to impress myself. I have yet to do it.

I'm not fighting for justice. I am not fighting for freedom. I am fighting for my life and another day in the world here.