The morality code that remains after the religion that produced it is rejected is like the perfume that lingers in an empty bottle.

The reason why I hated school so intensely [was that] it interfered with my freedom.

It’s a good thing when you don’t dare do something if you don’t think it’s right. But it’s not good when you think something’s not right because you don’t dare do it.

No one and nothing can harm us, child, except what we fear and love.

All my days I have longed equally to travel the right road and to take my own errant path.

All things that a man owns hold him far more than he holds them.

One cannot escape dogmas—those who hold most firmly to dogmas today are those whose only dogma is that dogmas should be feared like the plague.

Many a man is given what is intended for another, but no man is given another's fate.

I went to work in an office and learned, among other lessons, to do things I did not care for, and to do them well. Before I left this office, two of my books had already been published.

Easy for them to keep their youth who will never learn a lesson.

I hated school so intensely. It interfered with my freedom. I avoided the discipline by an elaborate technique of being absent-minded during classes.

Most places we leave in childhood grow less, not more, fancy.

I know where I'm going. And if I don't know where I'm going, I don't tend to get anywhere.

Well I've been writing books. So that, by its nature, is kind of a solitary occupation. And from time to time I have research help, but mostly I've done those completely on my own.

Now if I lived in my land, which I do, if I lived in Iceland, if I lived in Greensland I'd still have Chinese children, but out of my ears my little grey baby hears.

Being harmless means being so strong, so empowered, that the idea of showing power through harm is not even a part of your consciousness.

I was raised as a tomboy with boys, and I never really feel like myself when I am really dolled up at premieres and showbiz events.

I just love the ideal of the surreal quality of putting it on a shoe.

When you chop wood, splinters fly

I have been younger in October than in all the months of spring.

For what we are about to receive, Oh Lord 'tis Thee we thank,' said the cannibal as he cut a slice off the missionary's shank.