There are treasures in books that all the money in the world cannot buy, but the poorest laborer can have for nothing.

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.

Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.

The hands that help are better far than lips that pray.

It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense.

Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?

In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.

So, ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give.

As more people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers.

To hate man and worship God seems to be the sum of all the creeds.

The destroyer of weeds, thistles, and thorns is a benefactor whether he soweth grain or not.

If we obey God, we will be happy.

The idea that fast reading is good reading is a twentieth-century weed, springing out of the stony farmland cultivated by the computer manufacturers.

Fiction is a careful combination of observation, inspiration, and imagination.

I come from great stock. I didn't come from money. My parents both worked really hard to keep food on the table and give my sister and me opportunities to play sports and see what we were good at.

When my first novel was published, I went in great excitement round bookshops in central London to see if they had stocked it.

[On her seven-month-old son:] When people see me carrying him in the street they think I'm being attacked by a short, bald man. But it's just me with my little fat child.

If you want to make god laugh, make a plan.

The very first discovery of beauty strikes the mind with an inward joy, and spreads a cheerfulness and delight through all its faculties.

Songwriting is kind of like a craft. It's not something that just comes in a dream. You've got to work at it.