Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t matter. I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book, If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for.

Where there is no opposition to evil, it multiplies.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

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

If you want to be enthusiastic, act enthusiastic.

Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.

I wrote some of the worst poetry west from the Mississippi River, but I wrote. And I finally sometimes got it right.

Humility is not something that comes naturally. But it is a cardinal virtue that should be pursued more than any other.

A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.

You don’t have to be a renowned artist like Q-Tip to try your hand at poetry. You don’t need any special equipment – that’s the beauty of it.

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

If you’ve got a talent, protect it.

Meditation has been a loyal friend to me. It has helped me write my books.

‚Two Voices,‘ from my album with Peter Schwalm, is an intact dream-poem. I awoke one night with an image of a piece of paper and all the words of the poem written on it, so I just blundered down to the kitchen table and ‚copied it out.‘

It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.

I no have education. I have inspiration. If I was educated, I would be a damn fool.

There are half a dozen subjects that I return to time and time again, and that doesn’t bother me. Because most of my favorite writers do that, to hunt down the same topic or theme from different directions each time.

Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.

The more you know the less you need to say.

When I was president, I announced and I still maintain that I can live with Roe v. Wade. I did everything I possibly could as president under that ruling, which I don’t think ought to be changed, to minimize the need for abortions. I think every abortion is a result of a horrible series of errors on the part of people involved.

I tweet in the morning and the evening. To write 12 hours a day, there is a moment when you’re really tired. It’s my relaxing time.

The object of the superior man is truth.

Writing is like anything else – the more you do it, the better you get at it, the easier it comes, and the less concerned you’ll be about what’s going to happen to it, where it’s going, what it sounds like, whether it’s right.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

You might not always get what you want, but you always get what you expect.

It is more difficult to rule yourself than to rule a city.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

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.

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.

I worked with someone who told me they’d never like me. But for some reason, I just felt like I needed her approval. So I started changing myself to please her. It made me stop being social and friendly. I was so unhappy.

Advertising is a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero.

Character is destiny.

Effective action is always unjust.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.

A beautiful body perishes, but a work of art dies not.

Become aware of your own insufficiency.

Life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television.

In the first book of my Discworld series, published more than 26 years ago, I introduced Death as a character; there was nothing particularly new about this – death has featured in art and literature since medieval times, and for centuries we have had a fascination with the Grim Reaper.

While musical experts of the world focus on what choir members can do, I would like to focus on what choir members can be.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!

Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same.

Doing the box set is one of those things where you get to rewrite your own history to some extent. We could take out some of the songs that we felt weren’t as strong as some of the others, so you look better.

I think it’s healthy for a person to be nervous. It means you care – that you work hard and want to give a great performance. You just have to channel that nervous energy into the show.

The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

You are going to let the fear of poverty govern you life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

I am a dangerous man when turned loose with a typewriter.

I cry very easily. It can be a movie, a phone conversation, a sunset – tears are words waiting to be written.

I don’t do research. I never have.

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.

Sometimes if you got a problem deep rooted in your life, it takes a little bit of time to overcome it in that area.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.

Follow your honest convictions and be strong.

It usually helps me write by reading – somehow the reading gear in your head turns the writing gear.

When I am writing, I do not distinguish between the natural and supernatural. Everything seems real. That is my world, you could say.

If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small.