If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.

More people should read books. It’s the most concentrated experience you can have.

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.

Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man.

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

Love is easy, and I love writing. You can’t resist love. You get an idea, someone says something, and you’re in love.

We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.

I really wish I knew what I was doing because I’d be writing hit songs every minute.

The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead!

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

I’m a pretty decent writer. It comes easy to me. I don’t agonize over sentences. I write like I talk. I try to make them good books.

Sometimes I’ve called writing a disease. If so, I’m glad that it caught me.

The work of science is to substitute facts for appearances, and demonstrations for impressions.

There is nothing so stable as change.

We cannot learn men from books.

Information is not knowledge.

I remember very little about writing the first series of ‚Hitchhiker’s.‘ It’s almost as if someone else wrote it.

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

Never regret what you don’t write.

There is no such thing as Something for nothing.

I’ve never had a divorce, but I’ve seen so many of my friends, my sister, my family go through that stuff, so I try to write for the people that can’t write about it. I take on their sorrow, so I’m able to kind of express it, or their joy.

I’ve always appreciated a turn of phrase.

We should take care not to make the intellect our goal; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

I think history is collective memories. In writing, I’m using my own memory, and I’m using my collective memory.

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

I’m married. My wife, Stella – a beautiful woman. She’s brought a lot of peace to my life, a lot of wisdom.

I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that ‚Oryx and Crake‘ is anti-science. Science is a way of knowing, and a tool. Like all ways of knowing and tools, it can be turned to bad uses. And it can be bought and sold, and it often is. But it is not in itself bad. Like electricity, it’s neutral.

To write it, it took three months; to conceive it three minutes; to collect the data in it all my life.

Each book I’ve done somehow finds its own unique form, a specific way it has to be written, and once I find it, I stick with it.

The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.

As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!

Good writing is like a windowpane.

Beautiful sentences pop into my head. Beautiful sentences that aren’t always absolutely accurate. Then, I have to choose between the beautiful sentence and being absolutely accurate. It can be a difficult choice.

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.

Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.

A veteran journalist has never had time to think twice before he writes.

Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only a knowledge – that is everywhere.

The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life… Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.

I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves – you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories.

The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.

What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Omnipotence is not knowing how everything is done; it’s just doing it.

Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.

To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness.

The true university of these days is a collection of books.

Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.

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

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

There are some Christian people who taste and see and enjoy religion in their own souls, and who get at a deeper knowledge of it than books can ever give them, though they should search all their days.

Writing is a solitary experience. I’m extremely superstitious. If I talk about the book or name the title out loud before finishing, I feel the energy I need to write will be drained. It’s so intimate, I can’t even share it with my wife.

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

When I’m writing, I don’t feel neurotic. So it’s better for the family if I’m working.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

Kisses are a better fate than wisdom.

If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.