Teaching literature is impossible; that is why it is difficult.

The most technologically efficient machine that man has ever invented is the book.

There is only one way to degrade mankind permanently and that is to destroy language.

Advertising - a judicious mixture of flattery and threats.

Even the human heart is slightly left of centre.

We are always in the place of beginning; there is no advance in infinity.

The world of literature is a world where there is no reality except that of the human imagination.

This story of loss and regaining of identity is, I think, the framework of all literature.

Man lives, not directly or nakedly in nature like the animals, but within a mythological universe, a body of assumptions and beliefs developed from his existential concerns.

The bible should be taught so early and so thoroughly that it sinks straight to the bottom of the mind where everything that comes along can settle on it.

It seems clear that the Bible belongs to an area of language in which metaphor is functional, and were we have to surrender precision for flexibility.

Writing isn't a choice. It's a calling. So answer the damn phone already!

He was gone, and she was broken hearted, that was all that mattered.

An artist might be attracted to hedonism, but of course an artist is not a hedonist. He's a worker, always.

Mother Liberty caresses with generous affections...[those] who, armed with the weapons of high-minded honesty,...have grasped that the freedom of each is rooted in the freedom of all.

...an imperfect plan implemented immediately and violently will always succeed better than a perfect plan.

Good people are found, not changed.

I didn't understand myself well enough be an ambassador to my world, to inspire people to want to cook, to inspire young people to want to come into my industry.

None of us know where our stories come from. That's why writers make fun of people who ask us where we get our ideas... because we don't know.

Clarity of language is the first casualty of authoritarianism.

I was listening to this record by Paul Desmond called First Place Again. It's incredibly gorgeous. There is nothing better that you would want to get from music than you get from that record.