Sentences of the court on moral issues are always passed in absentia.

We comes from God, I from the Devil.

The lilac branches are bowed under the weight of the flowers: blooming is hard, and the most important thing is - to bloom. (“A Story About The Most Important Thing”)

The nights were long, like the braids of a pretty girl, and the days were short, like a girl's sense. ("The North")

Heretics are the only bitter remedy against the entropy of human thought.

True literature can exist only where it is created, not by diligent and trustworthy functionaries, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and skeptics.

A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth reading.

Those two, in paradise, were given a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative.

Literature is painting, architecture, and music.

There is no final one; revolutions are infinite.

We need writers who fear nothing. ("Our Goal")

There is no cure for ambition other than success.

A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content.

God answers prayer with certainty. Wish fulfillment is something else.

In regard to infallibility, I never claimed it; God alone is infallible. His word is true, and in Him is no variableness, or shadow of turning.

Of all the men I have known, I cannot recall one whose mother did her level best for him when he was little who did not turn out well when he grew up.

Set good against evill. [Set good against evil.]

Tact is the rare ability to keep silent while two friends are arguing, and you know both of them are wrong.

No man will ever put his hand up your dress looking for a library card.

If you know a little bit the psychology of human beings, you have to understand that if you say something you should not do, then everybody wants to do it.

Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.