What are we, the inhabitants of this globe, least among the many that people infinite space? Our minds embrace infinity; the visible mechanism of our being is subject to merest accident.

Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.

Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?

The beginning is always today.

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.

If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!

You are my creator, but I am your master; Obey!

I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created.

There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.

Solitude was my only consolation - deep, dark, deathlike solitude.

My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed - my dearest pleasure when free.

I will take the Ring", he said, "though I do not know the way.

No one said parenting was easy, but NO good parent has any right to give up.It is one labyrinth you can never quit because it seems too hard.

We can give up belief in God while not losing touch with a treasured heritage.

Though I later found a career as a journalist and an essayist, fiction is my first love and I never left it, even though there was no easy way to make a living from it.

The difficult opponent is the best.

Hooray for most things!

I didn't know my father very well; I only met him a few times.

It's not that I don't like American pop; I'm a huge admirer of it, but I think my roots came from a very English and Irish base. Is it all sort of totally non-American sounding.

When you let me take I'm grateful. When you let me give I'm blessed.

Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands.