A reader can never tell if it’s a real thimble or an imaginary thimble, because by the time you’re reading it, they’re the same. It’s a thimble. It’s in the book.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.

An unimaginative person can neither be reverent or kind.

I think the American people, with some justification, think that most politicians live in la-la land.

My literature is much more the result of a paradox than that of an implacable logic, typical of police novels. The paradox is the tension that exists in my soul.

My own books drive themselves. I know roughly where a book is going to end, but essentially the story develops under my fingers. It’s just a matter of joining the dots.

All my stories are like the Greek and Roman myths, and the Egyptian myths, and the Old and New Testament.

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.

Every fact is related on one side to sensation, and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other: given the upper, to find the under side.

It I talked about Watergate, I was described as struggling to free myself from the morass. If I did not talk about Watergate, I was accused of being out of touch with reality.

You have to dream intentionally. Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally.

There’s a difference between describing and evoking something. You can describe something and be quite clinical about it. To evoke it, you call it up in the reader. That’s what writers do when they’re good.

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.

You see something, then it clicks with something else, and it will make a story. But you never know when it’s going to happen.

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.

Learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard.

I got interested in reading very early, because a story was read to me, by Hans Christian Andersen, which was ‚The Little Mermaid,‘ and I don’t know if you remember ‚The Little Mermaid,‘ but it’s dreadfully sad. The little mermaid falls in love with this prince, but she cannot marry him because she is a mermaid.

Music helps me tell my story. That’s where I can really be heard. But there’s so much focus on the things that aren’t music.

I grew up reading science fiction.

I learned a long time ago that reality was much weirder than anyone’s imagination.

Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.

I affirm to you the tremendous potential you have, not beyond anything you could ever imagine.

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.

The first stories I wrote when I was 12 were about Mars and landing on Mars.

I’ve always felt like there was a lot of hype around me even when there wasn’t. I felt like everyone was talking about me even when no one was talking about me.

The technology keeps moving forward, which makes it easier for the artists to tell their stories and paint the pictures they want.

They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

If I’m the people’s poet, then I ought to be in people’s hands – and, I hope, in their heart.

Anyone can be a moral individual, concerned with human rights and problems; but only a college professor, a trained expert, can solve technical problems by ‚sophisticated‘ methods. Ergo, it is only problems of the latter sort that are important or real.

How long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it?

When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.

There is a rollicking kindness that looks like malice.

We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.

People may think I’m trying something new by telling stories, but they’re just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That’s what I do.

Things ain’t what they used to be and never were.

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.

The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that.

I used to take my short stories to girls‘ homes and read them to them. Can you imagine the reaction reading a short story to a girl instead of pawing her?

Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be.

I’ve just always been a reader.

A home without books is a body without soul.

I was ill, and everyone could see it but me.

It amazes me sometimes that even intelligent people will analyze a situation or make a judgement after only recognizing the standard or traditional structure of a piece.

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

By reading, you learn through others‘ experiences, generally, a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.

If you can’t read, the only thing you can do is enjoy the pictures, not the whole story. Reading is the key to knowledge. Knowledge is the key to understanding. So read on, young man! Read on, young lady!

Remember that your imagination is yours and yours alone. You have the inborn capacity to use it in any way that you choose. No one else is responsible for your imagination. Anything placed in your imagination and held there ultimately becomes your reality.

I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me – they’re cramming for their final exam.

Millions of students now, in all the schools of America, are reading science fiction and especially, thank God, ‚The Martian Chronicles.‘

I spent my childhood in the country and started reading even before going to school. There was nothing else in my life but sketching and reading.

When I start to write, I don’t have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come.

Ah! yes, I know: those who see me rarely trust my word: I must look too intelligent to keep it.

I hate to tell you this, but you will never actually go to a galaxy far, far away and encounter Darth Vader. That’s science fiction; it isn’t going to happen.

A true artist is expected to be all that is noble-minded, and this is not altogether a mistake; on the other hand, however, in what a mean way are critics allowed to pounce upon us.

Little by little, not by making big promises, I need to be calmer, read more, spend more time with my loved ones, and be more mindful about nature and environment.