I was always very curious as a young man about why older writers who I met seemed so indifferent to what was going on, whereas I, in my 20s, was reading everything. Everything seemed important. But they were only interested in the writers they admired when they were young, and I didn’t understand it then, but now, now I understand it.

When I was a boy we didn’t wake up with Vietnam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner.

I guess we all like to be recognized not for one piece of fireworks, but for the ledger of our daily work.

Sin is geographical.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

I was a peripheral visionary. I could see the future, but only way off to the side.

Nobody enjoys the ‚little show about nothing‘ humor more than me, but that is never the way I look at it.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.

It is easy to say how we love new friends, and what we think of them, but words can never trace out all the fibers that knit us to the old.

We do not hate as long as we still attach a lesser value, but only when we attach an equal or a greater value.

Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.

It is not your paintings I like, it is your painting.

Every time I think that I’m getting old, and gradually going to the grave, something else happens.

To the man who reads ‚Scouting for Boys‘ superficially, there is a disappointing lack of religion in the book. But to him who tries it in practice, the basic religion underlying it soon becomes apparent.

So when these people sell out, even though they get fabulously rich, they’re gypping themselves out of one of the potentially most rewarding experiences of their unfolding lives. Without it, they may never know their values or how to keep their newfound wealth in perspective.

Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.

We’re always, by the way, in fundamental physics, always trying to investigate those things in which we don’t understand the conclusions. After we’ve checked them enough, we’re okay.

Children astound me with their inquisitive minds. The world is wide and mysterious to them, and as they piece together the puzzle of life, they ask ‚Why?‘ ceaselessly.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

Shakespeare didn’t work at all for me.

As long as possible, I would really like to complete one marathon per year. Though my time has been slowing down as I get older, it has become a very important part of my life.

I’ve been running a full marathon every year for more than 20 years, and my record is getting worse. Getting older, getting worse. It’s natural.

The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.

When the well is dry, they know the worth of water.

The supernatural is the natural not yet understood.

Previous generations understood about death, and undoubtedly would have seen a reasonable amount of death. Once you get into the Victorian era, you might well have seen the funerals of many of your siblings before you were very old.

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

With all of their benefits, and there are many, one of the things I regret about e-books is that they have taken away the necessity of trawling foreign bookshops or the shelves of holiday houses to find something to read. I’ve come across gems and stinkers that way, and both can be fun.

Proselytism is solemn nonsense; it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

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

Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.

The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.

I consider anybody a twerp who hasn’t read ‚Democracy in America‘ by Alexis de Tocqueville. There can never be a better book than that one on the strengths and vulnerabilities inherent in our form of government.

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.

One likes people much better when they’re battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.

Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows.

The best leaders understand the motivations of their team members and know their people – their lives and their families. But a leader must never grow so close to subordinates that one member of the team becomes more important than another, or more important than the mission itself.

Doubt is the incentive to truth and inquiry leads the way.

I feel like I’m too busy writing history to read it.

A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?

I feel like the way I was raised was to be able to see through all the titles in this world – from religion to race.

What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.

I wouldn’t say that anyone in fashion is on my side. I don’t think there’s anyone on my side.

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

The frontier between hell and heaven is only the difference between two ways of looking at things.

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.

When we talk about understanding, surely it takes place only when the mind listens completely – the mind being your heart, your nerves, your ears – when you give your whole attention to it.

If I heard someone else singing like me, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

Pay attention, don’t let life go by you. Fall in love with the back of your cereal box.