I read the Bible to myself; I’ll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is.

A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.

Being politically correct means saying what’s polite rather than what’s accurate. I like to be accurate.

I liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke to my brother, I would write down my thoughts. And I think I wrote some of the worst poetry west of the Rockies. But by the time I was in my 20s, I found myself writing little essays and more poetry – writing at writing.

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!

I read a lot when I’m travelling and always have a couple of books on the go.

I wear make-up, and it gets a little bit thicker every year.

Some people would claim that things like love, joy and beauty belong to a different category from science and can’t be described in scientific terms, but I think they can now be explained by the theory of evolution.

Myths can’t be translated as they did in their ancient soil. We can only find our own meaning in our own time.

Africa is probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being uninteresting.

I like to read books. I like to listen to music.

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.

The book that convinced me I wanted to be a writer was ‚Crime and Punishment‘. I put the thing down after reading it in a fever over two or three days… I said, ‚If this is what a book can be, then that is what I want to do.‘

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

I’ve often made revisions at that stage that turned out to be mistakes because I wasn’t really in the rhythm of the story anymore. I see a little bit of writing that doesn’t seem to be doing as much work as it should be doing, and right at the end, I will sort of rev it up. But when I finally read the story again, it seems a bit obtrusive.

Be not a slave of words.

If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest.

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.

The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history.

A good day is one where I can not just read a book, but write a review of it. Maybe today I’ll be able to do that. I get for some reason somewhat stronger when the sun starts to go down. Dusk is a good time for me. I’m crepuscular.

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.

The earth laughs in flowers.

I have two main hair people I work with. They’re always with me. I’m like, ‚I’m bored! I wanna change my hair!‘ That’s the good thing about a weave. You can do whatever with it.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

Beauty and folly are old companions.

The beauty of me being on stage is I have a voice.

The people who were honored in the Bible were the false prophets. It was the ones we call the prophets who were jailed and driven into the desert.

The English have all the material requisites for the revolution. What they lack is the spirit of generalization and revolutionary ardour.

Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.

Christ managed to boil down an awful lot of commandments to a few very simple rules for living. It’s when you go backwards through the ‚begats‘ and the Garden of Eden, and you start thinking, ‚Hang on, that’s a big punishment for eating one lousy apple… There’s a human-rights issue.‘

I have written a book. This will come as quite a shock to some. They didn’t think I could read, much less write.

I like to feel blonde all over.

The job of art is to chase ugliness away.

You see, the interesting thing about books, as opposed, say, to films, is that it’s always just one person encountering the book, it’s not an audience, it’s one to one.

Death wasn’t part of God’s original plan for humanity, and the Bible calls death an enemy – the last enemy to be destroyed.

In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.

No better way is there to learn to love Nature than to understand Art. It dignifies every flower of the field. And, the boy who sees the thing of beauty which a bird on the wing becomes when transferred to wood or canvas will probably not throw the customary stone.

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

Many parents and teachers have become irritated to the point of distraction at the way the weed-style growth of ‚like‘ has spread through the idiom of the young. And it’s true that in some cases the term has become simultaneously a crutch and a tic, driving out the rest of the vocabulary as candy expels vegetables.

I was a very keen reader of science fiction, and during the time I was going to libraries, it was good, written by people who knew their science.

I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me – they’re cramming for their final exam.

You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.

Language is wine upon the lips.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

Until I was a teenager, I used red pokeberries for lipstick and a burnt matchstick for eyeliner. I used honeysuckle for perfume.

How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!

Books are divided into two classes, the books of the hour and the books of all time.

For a person who grew up in the ’30s and ’40s in the segregated South, with so many doors closed without explanation to me, libraries and books said, ‚Here I am, read me.‘ Over time I have learned I am at my best around books.

I read poetry to save time.

A home without books is a body without soul.

I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I’ll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me.

The proper study of mankind is books.

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.

When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.

Being beautiful is not so fun when you’re in a business with all men.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.

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

A particularly beautiful woman is a source of terror. As a rule, a beautiful woman is a terrible disappointment.

Life is abundant, and life is beautiful. And it’s a good place that we’re all in, you know, on this earth, if we take care of it.