With the knowledge of her aloneness came a rush of self-declaration: “I will not be nothing.”

The story is always better than your ability to write it. My belief about this is that if you ever get to the point that you think you've done a story justice, you're in the wrong business.

When they finished laughing they were on their way to being not just friends, but the dearest of friends, the sort of friends whose lives are shaped by the friendship.

Because she was a princess she had a pegasus.

The story is always better than your ability to write it.

I advise those who want to become writers to study veterinary medicine, which is easier. You don't want to be a writer unless you have no choice - and if you have no choice, good luck to you.

There are things you don't want to know you can do

My capacity for invention is flash hot stark, I thought. Sucker sunshade. Disembodied radar-reconnaissance. Not to mention Bitter Chocolate Death and Killer Zebras. Pity about the rest of me.

Perhaps it is a human thing, to look upon such beauty and fail to encompass it.

[Harry] had always suffered from a vague restlessness, a longing for adventure that she told herself severely was the result of reading too many novels when she was a small child.

It is a much more straightforward thing to be a dog, and a dog's love, once given, is not reconsidered.

You have been appointed by God to save somebody

Democracy is good, but it is not good for an uneducated dogmatic society. Often, that society does not know how to choose wisely.

Believe in gold and thou shalt never settle for silver.

The whole world may call you to follow the wrong path! In such a case, tell the whole world to buzz off!

History is full of examples of people who clamp down after they began to enjoy too much freedom. Freedom can lead to instability, anarchy, and confusion. So there can be a moral counter-revolution.

When you're losing, you see what your team is made of.

The severity of your problems is a matter of perspective. Change your perspective and most of them become insignificant. Some of them will no longer exist as problems - but opportunities instead.

Hysterical in The Mask; funny yet moving in The Truman Show.

I've been very, very fortunate. I never had to work for a living.

It's lame to say that I'm a normal girl, but I think I am.