Don Quixote’s misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.

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

Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary ‚real‘ world.

Shakespeare didn’t work at all for me.

The mind of the painter must resemble a mirror, which always takes the colour of the object it reflects and is completely occupied by the images of as many objects as are in front of it.

I don’t read books much.

In every author let us distinguish the man from his works.

Burroughs is crap. Crap.

Once upon a time, novelists of the 19th century, such as Charles Dickens, published in serial form.

I’ve always felt that what I have going for me is not my imagination, because everyone has an imagination. What I have is a relentlessly controlled imagination. What looks like wild invention is actually quite carefully calculated.

I’m seeing the world partially through the eyes of a kid. Not all the time. There’s no black and white to it. But sometimes I’m seeing it like I’m 4.

Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

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.

Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.

Cowardice… is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend functioning of the imagination.

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

I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.

Aptitude found in the understanding and is often inherited. Genius coming from reason and imagination, rarely.

Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are everything in this world.

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

Early on, I was so impressed with Charles Dickens. I grew up in the South, in a little village in Arkansas, and the whites in my town were really mean, and rude. Dickens, I could tell, wouldn’t be a man who would curse me out and talk to me rudely.

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

Few people have the imagination for reality.

It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my own amusement. There was no kindly English professor to tell me for my own good how awful my writing really was. And there was no professor with the power to order me what to read, either.

The story as told in The Odyssey doesn’t hold water. There are too many inconsistencies.

All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.

I had the most magical childhood, running free and going anywhere I wanted to in my head.

Jane Austen is the pinnacle to which all other authors aspire.

Now is the winter of our discontent.

Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.

Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

Look at a book. A book is the right size to be a book. They’re solar-powered. If you drop them, they keep on being a book. You can find your place in microseconds. Books are really good at being books, and no matter what happens, books will survive.

A book has got smell. A new book smells great. An old book smells even better. An old book smells like ancient Egypt.

One of the things you do when you make a piece of art is you try to make the world you’d rather be in.

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.

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.

Some books leave us free and some books make us free.

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.

For me, writing a novel is like having a dream. Writing a novel lets me intentionally dream while I’m still awake. I can continue yesterday’s dream today, something you can’t normally do in everyday life.

The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.

Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous.

The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose.

The truest form of any form of revolutionary Left, whatever you want to call it, was Jack Kerouac, E.E. Cummings, & Ginsberg’s period. Excuse me, but that’s where it was at.

Scientists have to have a metaphor. All scientists start with imagination.

I have trouble imagining what I could do that’s beyond the practicality of what I can do.

Every man’s memory is his private literature.

This is not writing at all. Indeed, I could say that Shakespeare surpasses literature altogether, if I knew what I meant.

A book worth reading is worth buying.

Most people are unable to write because they are unable to think, and they are unable to think because they congenitally lack the equipment to do so, just as they congenitally lack the equipment to fly over the moon.

Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.

Whether I’m at the office, at home, or on the road, I always have a stack of books I’m looking forward to reading.

I’ve loved reading all my life.

Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

I don’t do Shakespeare. I don’t talk in that kind of broken English.

More people should read books. It’s the most concentrated experience you can have.

Imagination rules the world.