Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a million men.

I am not the first Buddha who came upon Earth, nor shall I be the last. In due time, another Buddha will arise in the world – a Holy One, a supremely enlightened One, endowed with wisdom in conduct, auspicious, knowing the universe, an incomparable leader of men, a master of angels and mortals.

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.

You cannot step into the same river twice.

The thing about fantasy – there are certain things you just don’t do in fantasy.

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.

As you get older, time speeds up but life slows down.

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.

In South Korea, they believe that when you turn 60, you’ve become a baby again and the rest of your life should be totally about joy and happiness, and people should leave you alone, and I just think that that’s the height of intelligence.

There is no such thing as Something for nothing.

I like gaps; all my stories have gaps. It seems this is the way people’s lives present themselves.

You can’t build a plot out of jokes. You need tragic relief. And you need to let people know that when a lot of frightened people are running around with edged weaponry, there are deaths. Stupid deaths, usually. I’m not writing ‚The A-Team‘ – if there’s a fight going on, people will get hurt. Not letting this happen would be a betrayal.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

You can write a short story in two hours. Two hours a day, you have a novel in a year.

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.

The higher the sun ariseth, the less shadow doth he cast; even so the greater is the goodness, the less doth it covet praise; yet cannot avoid its rewards in honours.

A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.

The wise use of your freedom to make your own decisions is crucial to your spiritual growth, now and for eternity.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

I seem to turn out stories that violate the discipline of the short story form and don’t obey the rules of progression for novels. I don’t think about a particular form: I think more about fiction, let’s say a chunk of fiction.

Say not, ‚I have found the truth,‘ but rather, ‚I have found a truth.‘

The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new, or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

The question isn’t, ‚What do we want to know about people?‘, It’s, ‚What do people want to tell about themselves?‘

You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long.

A professor must have a theory as a dog must have fleas.

The person who doesn’t scatter the morning dew will not comb gray hairs.

In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.

Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life – knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.

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!

All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.

Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing.

The cautious seldom err.

A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.

I used to read five psalms every day – that teaches me how to get along with God. Then I read a chapter of Proverbs every day and that teaches me how to get along with my fellow man.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

Truth is so hard to tell, it sometimes needs fiction to make it plausible.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.

Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.

Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.

Fools admire, but men of sense approve.

Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.

The two powers which in my opinion constitute a wise man are those of bearing and forbearing.

I was enjoying myself writing, because I don’t know what’s going to happen when I take a ride around that corner. You don’t know at all what you’re going to find there. That can be thrilling when you read a book, especially when you’re a kid and you’re reading stories.

Let us not listen to those who think we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly. Nothing is so praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to forgive.

Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.