Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

What I have is a malevolent curiosity. That’s what drives my need to write and what probably leads me to look at things a little askew. I do tend to take a different perspective from most people.

When I worked on a magazine, I learned that there are many, many writers writing that can’t write at all; and they keep on writing all the cliches and bromides and 1890 plots, and poems about Spring and poems about Love, and poems they think are modern because they are done in slang or staccato style, or written with all the ‚i’s‘ small.

One aspect of appellate judging is we have to give reasons for all of our decisions. And when you sit down and try to write it out, sometimes you find that your first judgment wasn’t the right one.

Many children make up, or begin to make up, imaginary languages. I have been at it since I could write.

When I talked to him on the phone yesterday. I called him George rather than Mr. Vice President. But, in public, it’s Mr. Vice President, because that is who he is.

Dialogue means debates and everyone’s point of view.

You always have to remember that if you say something negative, it’s going to come back to haunt you.

I make friends faster and easier than journalists.

When I write, I write about my surroundings. Sometimes it’s light, and sometimes it gets very dark.

My wife and I tried two or three times in the last 40 years to have breakfast together, but it was so disagreeable we had to stop.

I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.

Riches have never fascinated me, unless combined with the greatest charm or distinction.

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.

Prayer is simply a two-way conversation between you and God.

Extremely religious, legalistic people have a criticism or judgment about everyone and everything. They just have a way of bringing people down with what they say.

It’s sometimes comical to hear the younger generation ask their peers to repeat themselves.

The more you explain it, the more I don’t understand it.

When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I’m only really alive when I’m writing.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

The problem with having a sense of humor is often that people you use it on aren’t in a very good mood.

You aren’t learning anything when you’re talking.

It is very hard to not be able to engage with people in a real and honest way because they either want something from me, or they see me as something that I simply am not.

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.

I’ve read a lot of really great characters in some really crappy stories, where I said, like, ‚Boy I could shine here, but the story sucks.‘ I don’t want to be part of that.

I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool – and I’m not any of those – to say that I don’t write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues.

Don’t be too harsh to these poems until they’re typed. I always think typescript lends some sort of certainty: at least, if the things are bad then, they appear to be bad with conviction.

I guess every single word I’ve ever said is going to be dissected now.

Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.

There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.

In my divorce, I stood up and said to my ex-wife, ‚Hey, I messed up. This had nothing to do with you. I didn’t understand what marriage was. I cheated. I was wrong. We couldn’t fix it; it got worse. I stepped away because I didn’t want it to get any worse. You’re the mother of my kids – I don’t want to hate you.‘

I don’t care much for equations myself. This is partly because it is difficult for me to write them down, but mainly because I don’t have an intuitive feeling for equations.

The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

My favorite thing in life is writing about life, specifically the parts of life concerning love. Because, as far as I’m concerned, love is absolutely everything.

If an eloquent speaker speak not the truth, is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?

My enthusiasm seems to cause my world to endlessly offer me cooperative, co-creating experiences. I’m willing and I’m eager, and not just about my writing – I feel the same way about staying in shape, enjoying my family, giving a lecture, or whatever it may be.

I’m going to save my public voice largely for the issues where I have some depth.

I took the vow of celibacy in 1906. I had not shared my thoughts with my wife until then, but only consulted her at the time of making the vow. She had no objection.

I don’t mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.

Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.

The kids never listen to you, especially the youngest ones.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.

Write injuries in dust, benefits in marble.

Both times I was in India, I could not get people to listen to each other. I had to literally tell people to listen to each other and tell them that they can’t get creative and find alternate solutions if they don’t listen to each other. There’s a lot of arguing and justifying.

It’s a rather rude gesture, but at least it’s clear what you mean.

In my younger days, I was trying to write sophisticated prose and fantastic stories.

Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is ‚elephant‘.

I was a housewife, so I learned to write in times off, and I don’t think I ever gave it up, though there were times when I was very discouraged because I began to see that the stories I was writing were not very good, that I had a lot to learn, and that it was a much, much harder job than I had expected.

All of my writing is God-given.

Though I do manage to mumble around in about seven or eight languages, English remains the most beautiful of languages. It will do anything.

I can unload my opinion on anybody at anytime.

A speech idiosyncrasy, in the same way as an air quote, is really justifiable only if it’s employed very sparingly and if the user consciously intends to be using it.

Tell the children the truth.

It’s hard for me to grasp the concept of somebody being nervous when I’m talking to them.

I’m convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter. As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good.

Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales.

In a certain way, it’s the sound of the words, the inflection and the way the song is sung and the way it fits the melody and the way the syllables are on the tongue that has as much of the meaning as the actual, literal words.

Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.

I never expected any sort of success with ‚Mockingbird’… I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement.