The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.

I’m not well-read, but when I read, I read well.

War is so complex; human nature is so complex. There’s no filmmaker who has ever figured it out perfectly.

Dickens is one of those authors who are well worth stealing.

‚Bellyache‘ is totally fictional. I like writing about things that aren’t real. The song is about not trusting anyone and then putting trust in yourself and realizing that you don’t know what you are doing, either. Or realizing that things you do with a group of people that you think are cool in the moment are ultimately all on you.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

O Day of days when we can read! The reader and the book, either without the other is naught.

I don’t generally read a lot of fiction.

Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light.

In books lies the soul of the whole past time.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

Books are divided into two classes, the books of the hour and the books of all time.

This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room.

I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air.

All genuinely intellectual work is humorous.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

I sleep people. I put people unconscious. I’m stating facts.

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

In doubtful cases the more liberal interpretation must always be preferred.

‚Kiss Land‘ is like a horror movie.

Cunning… is but the low mimic of wisdom.

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

Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.

All art is quite useless.

A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.

I know that some books and some writers, you can pretty much draw a square around it and say, ‚Nobody under 40,‘ or ‚Nobody under 25.‘ With my books, it always has been, and continues to be, spread right across the board, and I think the operative term is ‚reader.‘

The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.

Power when wielded by abnormal energy is the most serious of facts.

A president has an inescapable responsibility to provide direction: What are we trying to achieve? What are we trying to prevent? Why? To do that, he has to both analyze and reflect.

We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.

Charlotte Bronte was writing about sex. I supposed Jane Austen was, too. Where do you get a hero like Darcy unless you are writing about sex?

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.

I am not a fan of books.

It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive.

When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation.

Most of my short stories are fantasy.

The racing is quite boring, sometimes. It’s hard to see how it pulls in fans.

It is easier to be critical than correct.

I consider myself to be as informed on American foreign policy as anyone in America.

For all right judgment of any man or things it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.

Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.

We are nauseated by the sight of trivial personalities decomposing in the eternity of print.

Where every something, being blent together turns to a wild of nothing.

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.

It is absolutely impossible to transcend the laws of nature. What can change in historically different circumstances is only the form in which these laws expose themselves.

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

Fiction is based on reality unless you’re a fairytale artist.

The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.

Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes.

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.

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.

Women. They are a complete mystery.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.

It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.

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

A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.

If you judge, investigate.

I have two pairs of reading glasses. One pair is for reading fiction, the other for non-fiction. I’ve read the Bible twice wearing each pair, and it’s the same.