I read the ‚Old Testament‘ all the way through when I was about 13 and was horrified. A few months afterwards I read ‚The Origin Of Species‘, hallucinating very mildly because I was in bed with flu at the time. Despite that, or because of that, it all made perfect sense.

Sadly, I do my homework. I’ve a soft spot for the boring minutiae. I read the Charter of the United Nations before meeting with Kofi Annan. I read the Meltzer report, and then I’ll read C. Fred Bergsten’s defense of institutions like the World Bank and the I.M.F. It’s embarrassing to admit.

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.

Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in.

I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else – God is in this person’s life. You can – you must – try to seek God in every human life.

I know that some books and some writers, you can pretty much draw a square around it and say, ‚Nobody under 40,‘ or ‚Nobody under 25.‘ With my books, it always has been, and continues to be, spread right across the board, and I think the operative term is ‚reader.‘

People define Christianity differently. I think a large portion of our population are Christians, they’re not all growing in their faith, they’re not all active, but I believe that a lot of people believe in Jesus and believe that he is their Lord and Savior.

OK, so what’s the speed of dark?

Man is not born to atheism. He is born to believe.

All writers are going to have to learn more about science, because it’s such an interesting part of their environment.

Science has explained nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness.

People often speak of God being even-handed. God is not even-handed. God is biased, in favor of the weak, of the despised.

I’ve always been very one-sided about science, and when I was younger, I concentrated almost all my effort on it.

The myth that everyone once read great literature is just a myth.

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin.

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones.

You can have religion with spirituality. You can also have religion without spirituality.

I’m always trying. Between every book, I think, ‚Well now, it’s time to get down to the serious stuff.‘

A church is a place in which gentlemen who have never been to heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.

My dear wife has, I would say, probably never opened a religious book, and seems to be one of those people to whom the whole idea is utterly remote and absurd.

Publishing is in a kind of Jurassic age.

Every man lives in two realms: the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live.

We are not at war against Islam.

I think there ought to be a strict separation or wall built between our religious faith and our practice of political authority in office. I don’t think the President of the United States should extoll Christianity if he happens to be a Christian at the expense of Judaism, Islam or other faiths.

The Koran shows every sign of being thrown together by human beings, as do all the other holy books.

I still have my unemployment books and I remember when I worked for the sanitation department and the post office.

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

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.

God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.

I think it makes sense to believe in God, but exactly what decision in your life you make differently because of it, I don’t know.

I always say that people should not rush to change religions. There is real value in finding the spiritual resources you need in your home religion.

Any reading not of a vicious species must be a good substitute for the amusements too apt to fill up the leisure of the labouring classes.

English is necessary as at present original works of science are in English. I believe that in two decades times original works of science will start coming out in our languages. Then we can move over like the Japanese.

It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth.

Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.

At Cornell University, my professor of European literature, Vladimir Nabokov, changed the way I read and the way I write. Words could paint pictures, I learned from him. Choosing the right word, and the right word order, he illustrated, could make an enormous difference in conveying an image or an idea.

‚Lives‘ is one of those books I should really have written when I was younger. It is the classic childhood, adolescence, breakthrough-into-maturity book. Every beginning writer has that material – and after that, you’re not sure what you can do.

An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.

Christianity supplies a Hell for the people who disagree with you and a Heaven for your friends.

The proper study of mankind is books.

I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.

I’m a Christian by choice.

Little by little, not by making big promises, I need to be calmer, read more, spend more time with my loved ones, and be more mindful about nature and environment.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.

Baseball changes through the years. It gets milder.

My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.

Next to religion, baseball has had a greater impact on our American way of life than any other American institution.

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

People who read the tabloids deserve to be lied to.

The quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the heathen. The reason was because the religion of the heathen consisted rather in rites and ceremonies than in any constant belief.

Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one’s own religion.

I’ve loved reading all my life.

By reading, you learn through others‘ experiences, generally, a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.

As a member of the Church, you have made sacred covenants with the Lord.

Become slower in your journey through life. Practice yoga and meditation if you suffer from ‚hurry sickness.‘ Become more introspective by visiting quiet places such as churches, museums, mountains and lakes. Give yourself permission to read at least one novel a month for pleasure.