The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.

The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly.

What is the easiest, the most comfortable thing for a writer to do? To congratulate the society in which he lives: to admire its biceps, applaud its progress, tease it endearingly about its follies.

Women scheme when they are weak, they lie out of fear. Men scheme when they are strong, they lie out of arrogance.

The best form of government is one that is dying, because that means it’s giving way to something else.

Irony - The modern mode: either the devil’s mark or the snorkel of sanity.

The best life for a writer is the life which helps him write the best books he can.

If the writer were more like a reader, he’d be a reader, not a writer. It’s as uncomplicated as that.

He didn’t really like travel, of course. He liked the idea of travel, and the memory of travel, but not travel itself.

To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness - though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless.

Everything you invent is true: you can be sure of that. Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry.

Close your eyes!""You can't kiss me from down there, Wylan." "Just do it!

This used to be a government of checks and balances. Now it's all checks and no balances.

I think that only daring speculation can lead us further and not accumulation of facts.

Oh my God. Lift me up out of this illusion, Lord. Heal my perception that I might know only reality and only you.

The only magic we have is what we make in ourselves, the muscles we build up on the inside, the sense of belief we create from nothing.

I think people respond to me as a down-to-Earth, girl-next-door person, because I am one of those people. That's something I don't have to act very hard at.

I feel some responsibility to shine light on things that I love.

I'm real good with math, with numbers, like my dad was. I'm pretty much dialed in.

Now, I guess, people want stars. People are trying to invent stars.

When I hear of the destruction of a species, I feel just as if all the works of some great writer have perished.