It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.

I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book.

If I am no longer disturbed myself, I will deal less with disturbed people, but I don’t regret having concerned myself with them because I think most of us are disturbed.

Dickens is one of those authors who are well worth stealing.

If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That’s not going to happen if you care only about yourself.

I would never want a book’s autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books.

My fans don’t feel like I hold anything back from them. They know whatever I’m going through now, they’ll hear about it on a record someday. They’ll hear the real story. There’s a little bit of lag time. It’s not as instant as going on a gossip blog. But it’s much more accurate.

Yes, there is a terrible moral in ‚Dorian Gray‘ – a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book.

It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

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

I don’t keep people around me that aren’t family. You don’t get to stay. Unless you’re eating at the table with us, you’re not part. We eat together, we cry together, we live together, we die together. Everything that we do is for each other, and we care for another.

I’m always reading the next book. Taking notes. Highlighting, researching, studying. It doesn’t stop.

What air is to the body, to feel understood is to the heart.

May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.

It is always a strain when people are being killed. I don’t think anybody has held this job who hasn’t felt personally responsible for those being killed.

Stay humble and be concerned for the less fortunate.

I am two with nature.

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.

Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

I’m very sensitive. I remember, as a kid at school, if someone in the classroom was sad or angry, it could have a great impact on me.

I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.

All books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time.

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

We have observed that, in society and the world in which we live, selfishness has increased more than love for others, and that men of good will must work, each with his own strengths and expertise, to ensure that love for others increases until it is equal and possibly exceeds love for oneself.

I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.

I feel like I write so that people can think of it as theirs. If my song is exactly about your life right now, then it is – I don’t even want to say that it’s mine, because it’s yours.

If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it, write it in the sand near the water’s edge.

I will far rather see the race of man extinct than that we should become less than beasts by making the noblest of God’s creation, woman, the object of our lust.

Something must be done to save humanity! A better world is possible!

Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.

Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.

A book worth reading is worth buying.

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

It is the most sensual men who need to flee women and torment their bodies.

The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.

Eating is so intimate. It’s very sensual. When you invite someone to sit at your table and you want to cook for them, you’re inviting a person into your life.

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

Often, little situations trigger enormous reactions. Be there, present for it. Your partner will find it easier to see it in you, and you will find it easier to see it in them.

What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.

Evolution can go to hell as far as I am concerned. What a mistake we are. We have mortally wounded this sweet life-supporting planet – the only one in the whole Milky Way – with a century of transportation whoopee.

You know that your happiness and suffering depend on the happiness and suffering of others. That insight helps you not to do wrong things that will bring suffering to yourself and to other people.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.

I remember when I was younger, and in school, our teachers showed us films of plastic in the ocean, starving polar bears and so on. I cried through all the movies. My classmates were concerned when they watched the film, but when it stopped, they started thinking about other things. I couldn’t do that. Those pictures were stuck in my head.

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.

With my childhood, it’s a wonder I’m not psychotic. I was the little Jewish boy in the non-Jewish neighborhood. It was a little like being the first Negro enrolled in the all-white school. I grew up in libraries and among books, without friends.

The cool thing about reading is that when you read a short story or you read something that takes your mind and expands where your thoughts can go, that’s powerful.

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

Humanity is still advancing; and it will probably continue to advance for hundreds of thousands of years more, always on condition that we know how to keep the same line of advance as our ancestors towards ever greater consciousness and complexity.

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

If you had a million Shakespeares, could they write like a monkey?

Never elated when someone’s oppressed, never dejected when another one’s blessed.

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.

I miss people. I miss going anywhere and meeting a random person and saying ‚Hi‘ and having a conversation about life. I love people.

One whose knowledge is confined to books and whose wealth is in the possession of others, can use neither his knowledge nor wealth when the need for them arises.

Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, a possession for all time.

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

I don’t think about who the audience is for my books.

There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil.