In Germany I have been acknowledged again since the fall of Hitler, but my works, partly suppressed by the Nazis and partly destroyed by the war; have not yet been republished there.

The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

A book worth reading is worth buying.

I perhaps ought to say that individually I never was much interested in the Texas question. I never could see much good to come of annexation, inasmuch as they were already a free republican people on our own model.

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.

The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose.

I’m the only person you’ve ever met who has read Longfellow.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

After you finish a book, you know, you’re dead. But no one knows you’re dead. All they see is the irresponsibility that comes in after the terrible responsibility of writing.

The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.

Under the Timber and Stone Act of 1878, which might well have been called the ‚Dust and Ashes Act,‘ any citizen of the United States could take up one hundred and sixty acres of timber land and, by paying two dollars and a half an acre for it, obtain title.

I was warped early by Ray Bradbury and Edgar Allan Poe. I was very fond of Franz Kafka.

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire.

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

I think the definition of a book is changing.

You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.

If you’d have said Evangelical in 1957, most people wouldn’t know what you were talking about. And then, they’d be against it.

Unlike Europe, China can’t be intimidated. Europe backs down if the United States looks at it the wrong way. But China, they’ve been there for 3,000 years and are paying no attention to the barbarians and don’t see any need to.

How many emperors and how many princes have lived and died and no record of them remains, and they only sought to gain dominions and riches in order that their fame might be ever-lasting.

Fiction is the truth inside the lie.

To correct a natural indifference I was placed half-way between misery and the sun. Misery kept me from believing that all was well under the sun, and the sun taught me that history wasn’t everything.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

I am not a fan of books.

I’d done a lot of research in Hollywood and in academia. I love research and so I wanted to kind of ground the book in history, in things that I read that were universal and timeless and then kind of let my own experiences sort of filter through all of this history.

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

What I can say is that all my characters are searching for their souls, because they are my mirrors. I’m someone who is constantly trying to understand my place in the world, and literature is the best way that I found in order to see myself.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Americans are rising to the tasks of history, and they expect the same of us.

In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.

Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out.

The trouble with our people is as soon as they got out of slavery they didn’t want to give the white man nothing else. But the fact is, you got to give em something. Either your money, your land, your woman or your ass.

America has fought five wars since 1945 and has gained its objectives in only one of them, the Gulf War.

Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder.

The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and – since there is no other metaphor – also the soul.

Historically, the stuff of the universe goes on becoming concentrated into ever more organized forms of matter.

The guys who won World War II and that whole generation have disappeared, and now we have a bunch of teenage twits.

I think I work much harder on the children’s books. I suppose I enjoy that. I find it interesting that although there are more than 30 books in the Discworld series, it is the four that were written for children which have won the awards. I’ve never been quite certain why this is.

There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made.

The rudiment of verse may, possibly, be found in the spondee.

My favourite poem is the one that starts ‚Thirty days hath September‘ because it actually tells you something.

All books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time.

I’ve loved reading all my life.

All good books have one thing in common – they are truer than if they had really happened.

I’ve only written one science-fiction book: ‚Fahrenheit 451.‘ That book is a book based on real facts and my hatred of people who destroy books.

To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy. With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.

You accept that this civilisation could be abolished and life will begin later on after a few thousand years because that is something that has happened in the history of this planet. When you have peace in yourself and accept, then you are calm enough to do something, but if you are carried by despair there is no hope.

Some mischievous people always there. Last several thousand years, always there. In future, also.

The whole history of pop music had rested on the first person singular, with occasional intrusions of the second person singular.

Long before history began we men have got together apart from the women and done things. We had time.

Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.

Blood alone moves the wheels of history.

History will point out some of the things I did wrong and some of the things I did right.