Your attitude is perhaps a little unnecessarily rigorous," suggested Jack.

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.

Time alone can help us to look inward, to fish for things that others can’t see.

Never trust the storyteller. Only trust the story.

If you're an English actor and turn up in America, they don't have an opinion about where you sit. They have no idea what auditions to send you to, so they send you to everything.

Violence now becomes the only tool by which we can actually mediate social problems that should be dealt with in very different ways.

Making the most of your life is unusual. That's why you need to develop unusual habits to earn outstanding rewards.

It is wrong to believe that Hispanics are Democrats. Hispanics are traditionally and historically conservative, not just socially conservative, but fiscally conservative.

The purpose of parenting is to provide steady and wide-ranging opportunities for a child. The child does the rest.

Power without abuse loses its charm.

Jesus kept his wounds so that we would experience his mercy. This is our strength and our hope.

I should like to repeat what I stated recently in the Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia: It won't be the religion, but rather the world-view of some of its followers that shall be made current.