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

A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape.

A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green.

I don’t read ‚chick lit,‘ fantasy or science fiction but I’ll give any book a chance if it’s lying there and I’ve got half an hour to kill.

As a country, we can’t teach kids how to read and write when we got 18 years to do it. And that’s – that’s a disgrace.

A boy’s story is the best that is ever told.

From a purely positivist point of view, man is the most mysterious and disconcerting of all the objects met with by science.

Why need I volumes, if one word suffice?

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.

Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.

The problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it’s a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.

‚Discworld‘ is taking something that you know is ridiculous and treating it as if it is serious, to see if something interesting happens when you do so.

It is as healthy to enjoy sentiment as to enjoy jam.

If the government ever imposes a tax on books – and I wouldn’t put it past them – I’m in dead trouble.

Nature, like man, sometimes weeps from gladness.

I like my fair share of board games.

A capacity, and taste, for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.

In books lies the soul of the whole past time.

Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.

Fun is one of the most important – and underrated – ingredients in any successful venture. If you’re not having fun, then it’s probably time to call it quits and try something else.

Some people think literature is high culture and that it should only have a small readership. I don’t think so… I have to compete with popular culture, including TV, magazines, movies and video games.

There would be no Sherlock Holmes if it were not for serial publication.

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.

If you had a million Shakespeares, could they write like a monkey?

There is no Frigate like a book to take us lands away nor any coursers like a page of prancing Poetry.

Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Shakespeare didn’t work at all for me.

It’s very difficult to read a book on your computer.

I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.

I read about eight newspapers in a day. When I’m in a town with only one newspaper, I read it eight times.

There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern… No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.

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.

Shakespeare – I was very influenced – still am – by Shakespeare. I couldn’t believe that a white man in the 16th century could so know my heart.

He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

With all of their benefits, and there are many, one of the things I regret about e-books is that they have taken away the necessity of trawling foreign bookshops or the shelves of holiday houses to find something to read. I’ve come across gems and stinkers that way, and both can be fun.

Those who have been writing literature have not been writing life.

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.

The only fundamental and possible socialism is the socialisation of the selective breeding of man.

I, personally, think there is a really danger of taking food too seriously. Food should be part of the bigger picture.

Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.

The way to know life is to love many things.

Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are.

When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.

I’ve never known any trouble than an hour’s reading didn’t assuage.

A man’s true character comes out when he’s drunk.

Any good piece of material like Shakespeare ought to be open to reinterpretation.

There are very few people who really appreciate my shows. People come to the show and they pay and they enjoy it, but I don’t really think most people really understand what they’ve seen.

Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.

When you read, I’m sure you don’t realize that your eyes are going backwards and forwards and to this place and that place. Mine don’t do that.

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.

I wasn’t trying to be an outlaw writer. I never heard of that term; somebody else made it up. But we were all outside the law: Kerouac, Miller, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kesey; I didn’t have a gauge as to who was the worst outlaw. I just recognized allies: my people.

There is nothing which can better deserve your patronage, than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.

How can one take delight in the world unless one flees to it for refuge?

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.

The sky is the part of creation in which nature has done for the sake of pleasing man.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.

There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.