For me, a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its own music, its own integrity.

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

For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.

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?

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.

The poet, being an imitator like a painter or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects – things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be. The vehicle of expression is language – either current terms or, it may be, rare words or metaphors.

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

In constructing the plot and working it out with the proper diction, the poet should place the scene, as far as possible, before his eyes. In this way, seeing everything with the utmost vividness, as if he were a spectator of the action, he will discover what is in keeping with it, and be most unlikely to overlook inconsistencies.

Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit a man; Simplicity, a child.

I’ve only written one science-fiction book: ‚Fahrenheit 451.‘ That book is a book based on real facts and my hatred of people who destroy books.

I’m the only person you’ve ever met who has read Longfellow.

No book includes the entire world. It’s limited. And so it doesn’t seem like an aesthetic compromise to have to do that. There’s so much other material to write about.

Religion is part of the human make-up. It’s also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.

Don’t be too harsh to these poems until they’re typed. I always think typescript lends some sort of certainty: at least, if the things are bad then, they appear to be bad with conviction.

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

The best book, like the best speech, will do it all – make us laugh, think, cry and cheer – preferably in that order.

I’ve just always been a reader.

I have not worked out my poems with a careful will, falling rather on haphazard and blind formulation of wordage, a more flowing concept, in a hope for a more new and lively path. I do personalize at times, but this only for the grace and elan of the dance.

I think when people mean that Discworld books have become darker they really mean the series is growing up. In ‚The Colour of Magic‘ most of the city is set alight. It’s a joke, in much the same way that the Earth is destroyed almost at the start of Douglas Adams’s ‚The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.‘

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.

O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

Poetry and lyrics are very similar. Making words bounce off a page.

I’ve read a lot of really great characters in some really crappy stories, where I said, like, ‚Boy I could shine here, but the story sucks.‘ I don’t want to be part of that.

On the subject of literary genres, I’ve always felt that my response to poetry is inadequate. I’d love to be the kind of person that drifts off into the garden with a slim volume of Elizabethan verse or a sheaf of haikus, but my passion is story.

I think the definition of a book is changing.

The poetry from the eighteenth century was prose; the prose from the seventeenth century was poetry.

O‘ What may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side!

I don’t understand what it’s all about or what’s worth what, but if the people in the Swedish Academy decide that x, y or z wins the Nobel Prize, then so be it.

The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.

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

Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.

I read a lot. I enjoy reading a lot.

Whenever I write a novel, I have a strong sense that I am doing something I was unable to do before. With each new work, I move up a step and discover something new inside me.

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

With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.

The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses?

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

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

Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

I’m working on my life story. I’m not decided if it’s going to be a musical or a movie with music in it.

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.

I’m nobody, who are you?

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

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

Now is the winter of our discontent.

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.

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

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

Human beings love poetry. They don’t even know it sometimes… whether they’re the songs of Bono, or the songs of Justin Bieber… they’re listening to poetry.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.