There is accumulation. There is responsibility. And beyond this there is great unrest.

A pier is a disappointed bridge; yet stare at it for long enough and you can dream it to the other side of the Channel.

Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.

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.

The land of embarrassment and breakfast.

When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.

History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.

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.

Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still.

The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of life.

Love without reason

If he had to wish, what would he wish for, he asked himself. What was there to wish for... a wish asked for the unattainable. The impossible.

Are you the stuff that hero's are made of? Or are you a jellyfish in a skirt?

For our Hogwarts is in danger from external, deadly foesAnd we must unite inside her or we'll crumble from within

Awareness is without choice, without demand, without anxiety; in that state of mind, there is perception.

I thought that unless people know me, they wouldn't find me funny.

If you can't handle the responsibility of a hit single, don't write one.

My first book was rejected nine times. It turned out to be a best seller, Battle Cry? in 1953.

Nothing can be truly great which is not right.

Problems in relationship occur because each person is concentrating on what is missing in the other person.