To anyone who took the trouble to look, I was plainly visible, but when people are expecting to see nothing, that is usually what they see.

I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy

I don't pretend reality is the same for everyone.

Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother, but the rest of the time there was none. This story is about one of those other times.

For me to see is to read. It has always been that way.

Of course I loved books more than people.

Boys do not leave their boyhood behind when they leave off their school uniform.

A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth.

But silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grown pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you.

When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic, yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one ever expects to be fulfilled.

A story so cherished it has to be dressed in casualness to disguise its significance in case the listener turned out to be unsympathetic.

An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.

To write only according to the rules laid down by masterpieces signifies that one is not a master but a pupil.

If people tell you what you really don't want to hear what's unpleasant-there's an almost automatic reaction of antipathy. You have to train yourself out of it.

The secret to keeping moving is keeping moving.

The Force is within you. Force yourself.

The Constitution is ...the greatest single effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen

I once did something right. I played first-rate basketball. I really did. And after you're first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate.

I have every reason to be happy.

All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.