Wine is valued for its price, not its flavor.

An author must be nothing if he do not love truth; a barrister must be nothing if he do.

When the ivy has found its tower, when the delicate creeper has found its strong wall, we know how the parasite plants grow and prosper.

Never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning.

Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes.

What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?...Was ever anything so civil?

The habit of reading is the only one I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

It has now become the doctrine of a large clan of politicians that political honesty is unnecessary, slow, subversive of a man's interests, and incompatible with quick onward movement.

There is no royal road to learning; no short cut to the acquirement of any art.

Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.

She flooded my thoughts. I drowned in peace.

Birds are sensitive to mispronunciation, even more sensitive than the French.

As long as the Earth can make a spring every year, I can.

A goal without a plan is a wish.

I care more about an agenda than story and character.

[There] is something fundamentally unpatriotic in the yearning to fundamentally transform your country.

Fathers need to be tough and tender...you be tough for your family, be tender with your family. You protect them, and you be a safe place.

You can win all the tournaments you want, but the majors are what you're remembered for. It's how you're measured as a champion in our sport. The majors are where it's at.

Sometimes directors feel a script needs something, but they're not sure what it is, so they show it to a friend; if the friend is a writer, he ends up kicking around with that script for a while.