I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

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

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

There is no friend as loyal as a book.

While working on my first five books, I kept wishing I was writing a novel. I thought until you wrote a novel, you weren’t taken seriously as a writer. It used to trouble me a lot, but nothing troubles me now, and besides, there has been a change. I think short stories are taken more seriously now than they were.

Good is positive. Evil is merely privative, not absolute: it is like cold, which is the privation of heat. All evil is so much death or nonentity. Benevolence is absolute and real. So much benevolence as a man hath, so much life hath he.

It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.

To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do.

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.

I specifically did not read other First Ladies‘ books, because I didn’t want to be influenced by how they defined the role. I knew that I would have to find this role – very uniquely and specifically to me and who I was.

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.

I dislike Allegory – the conscious and intentional allegory – yet any attempt to explain the purport of myth or fairytale must use allegorical language.

Biography lends to death a new terror.

To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today.

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.

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

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

No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience.

Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness… and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.

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

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

Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.

Ever since the beginning of rock and roll, there’s been an Axl Rose. And it’s just boring. It’s totally boring to me.

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

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.

I tend to get bored quickly, which means I must be boring.

I don’t think I’ve ever read poetry, ever. I’m not really book-smart.

You cannot open a book without learning something.

I don’t know if I officially proofread my father’s book, but I read it. I did get some conception of grammar in general from that.

I have been a youngster and I know speeches are boring.

Evil is easy, and has infinite forms.

I had no ambition to be a writer because the books I read were too good, my standards were too high.

O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

Sadly, of course, there is real evil in the world. You watch the news, and you see all of the people suffering and so much cruelty.

I’d be so bored if I wasn’t going out there, knowing that I could still do it. So, I’m going to work hard to be ready to go, and I still plan on playing for a long time.

My readers – and I get 400 emails for a day, my readers normally they say, well, you understand me, and I answer, you do understand me also. We are in the same level.

After you finish a book, you know, you’re dead. But no one knows you’re dead. All they see is the irresponsibility that comes in after the terrible responsibility of writing.

I don’t write the books. God writes the books and delivers the speeches.

It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.

Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.

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

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

I don’t know if she should worry too much, I mean some of our greatest writers have had movies made of their books, lots of Hemingway novels were turned into movies, it doesn’t hurt the book.

Digital technology allows us a much larger scope to tell stories that were pretty much the grounds of the literary media.

Whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

I read all the time, and I’m often struck by something I’m reading.

The connection between psychology, mythology, and literature is as important as the connection between psychology and biology and the hard sciences.

Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.

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.

Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.

When you combine boring with fear, you have fun.

War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

I had not expected ‚A Brief History of Time‘ to be a best seller.

O Day of days when we can read! The reader and the book, either without the other is naught.

My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.

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