To write simply is as difficult as to be good.

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.

It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

She abandoned the garden, and the mums and asters that had trusted her to see them through to the first frost hung their waterlogged heads.

I think for the last fifteen, twenty years or so, Hollywood has underestimated the appeal of the Western. I think there is still a huge market.

I was a middle-of-the-road Democrat more than anything else. I know I voted for Carter. Watergate taught me how bad the Republicans were.

Never waste your time trying to explain who you are to people who are committed to misunderstanding you.

Who knows whither the clouds have fled? In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache.

Even when life appears to be going in circles the view is always changing if you are paying attention.

The United States has experienced high rates of inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century.

I don't think I'm delusional, but I'm definitely a dreamer; I definitely want to see the best in things and I believe in what I do.

It might be funny when you get hit by a car, but not when you get run over by one.

Memory is a great deceiver: it embroiders until naught is left but the glory and the pleasure.