We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.

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.

In wars amongst ideas, doubters are the victims.

How well we communicate is determined not by how well we say things but how well we are understood.

Not all celebrities are dunces.

Closeness means you get hurt; closeness means letting down your defences and letting people see the tender skin under the carapace.

I've never been the sexy or the cute girl.

When I was a kid, I had an Atari 2600, and I would play Pac Man, Frogger, all that kind of stuff. And I did enjoy going to the arcade.

I don't worry about the storms, I am learning to sail my own ship.

They don't hang dukes, darling. He'd be let off by reason of insanity. Everyone knows the upper classes are batty.

One law for the lion and ox is oppression.

I'm not, nor is anybody I know in government part of a nasty right wing clique.