The thriller is the cardinal twentieth-century form. All it, like the twentieth century, wants to know is: Who's Guilty?

Whenever people say, 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it.

A medical profession founded on callousness to the pain of the other animals may eventually destroy its own sensibility to the pain of humans.

I don't myself believe that, even when we fulfil our minimum obligation not to cause pain, we have the right to kill animals.

We Irish had the right word on the tip of our tongue, but the imperialist got at that. What should trip off it we trip over.

"Sentimentalist" is the abuse with which people counter the accusation that they are cruel, thereby implying that to be sentimental is worse that to be cruel, which it isn't.

The fact that there are bigger injustices and wrongs doesn't make it right to sacrifice an innocent monkey. It doesn't alter the case at all.

I told some imprecisely imagined interlocutor that each year I hoped to have outgrown being moved by the autumn and each year I hadn't

Sentimentalist” is the abuse with which people counter the accusation that they are cruel, thereby implying that to be sentimental is worse than to be cruel, which it isn’t.

The purpose of the gospel is to make bad men good and good men better, and to change human nature.

Turn your past wound of misery and sadness into a wonder of life.

Everybody wants to be your friend when you have something that they want.

Falling isn’t so bad, you know. It’s only the landing that hurts.

Knowledge is silver. Outlook is gold. IQ is a lead weight.

Ardent yet chill and formal, how I ache to tempt a chisel as a sculptor.

When in doubt, pig out!

I believe a personal relationship with God is healthy, but organized religion has potential for danger, in whatever faith.

I don't see novels ending with any real sense of closure.

If you give it to God, He transforms your test into a testimony, your mess into a message, and your misery into a ministry.