Shakespeare – I was very influenced – still am – by Shakespeare. I couldn’t believe that a white man in the 16th century could so know my heart.

There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.

It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are relatives of ours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even than Dwarves. Of old they spoke the languages of Men, after their own fashion, and liked and disliked much the same things as Men did. But what exactly our relationship is can no longer be discovered.

Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.

My relationship to power and authority is that I’m all for it. People need somebody to watch over them. Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave.

What I’d really like to control is not machines, but people.

The connection between psychology, mythology, and literature is as important as the connection between psychology and biology and the hard sciences.

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

I admire people who dare to take the language, English, and understand it and understand the melody.

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

Of course, there are those critics – New York critics as a rule – who say, ‚Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it’s good but then she’s a natural writer.‘ Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work at the language.

It confuses me and disappoints me when somebody says, ‚What does he do? What does he do?‘ My records are some of the biggest anthems ever. What do you think, they magically just appear? Obama walked out to my record.

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.

The fact is that when you do something from your heart, you leave a heart print.

Power is the measure of the degree of control you have over circumstances in your life and the actions of the people around you. It is a skill that is developed by a deep understanding of human nature, of what truly motivates people, and of the manipulations necessary for advancement and protection.

Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.

‚Mystic River‘ just smelled interesting to me. So I read it and liked it right away. Even the dialogue in it was great.

The upward course of a nation’s history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women.

I’ve come to admire our military kids more than you all will know, because you guys are heroes. And the only way your parents are able to serve is because you guys hold it down, and you do it with maturity beyond your years.

Whether I’m at the office, at home, or on the road, I always have a stack of books I’m looking forward to reading.

I’ve only written one science-fiction book: ‚Fahrenheit 451.‘ That book is a book based on real facts and my hatred of people who destroy books.

I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.

Presumptuous for me to say, but at least – at a minimum – I’ve been able to influence the direction of the Democratic Party on foreign policy. And I’ve been relatively – presumptuous to say – relatively successful legislatively in the Senate, being able to win a lot of Republican friends, and being able to cross the aisle.

I had a soft-spot in my heart for Ronald Reagan, if only because he was a sportswriter in his youth.

Fools admire, but men of sense approve.

My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.

A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.

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

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

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

No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes that she were not.

I don’t understand what it’s all about or what’s worth what, but if the people in the Swedish Academy decide that x, y or z wins the Nobel Prize, then so be it.

Religion is part of the human make-up. It’s also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.

I didn’t do anything at the Queen, whom I admire.

I liked watching Rossi, his style, his colours and everything. He was someone I looked up to and until now he is still my only hero. He is the king of motorbikes and most people like Rossi mainly because he comes across as a pretty fun and good character. He is cool and has a good style and look.

Every man’s memory is his private literature.

In the first book of my Discworld series, published more than 26 years ago, I introduced Death as a character; there was nothing particularly new about this – death has featured in art and literature since medieval times, and for centuries we have had a fascination with the Grim Reaper.

When I was on TV in the ’80s, I wasn’t thinking, ‚There’s a 10-year-old kid watching this and in 15 years, he’s gonna be doing stuff that was influenced by me.‘ I was trying to get my five minutes together. So now that those people are comedians and they’re influenced by me – it’s bizarre.

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

I’ll tell you who I absolutely adore: Ian McEwan.

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.

Whatever came to mind, whatever came to hand, I would read.

The Welsh people have a talent for acting that one does not find in the English. The English lack heart.

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.

A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.

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.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

I am Warhol. I am the No. 1 most impactful artist of our generation. I am Shakespeare in the flesh.

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I ain’t read.

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.

Power is the great aphrodisiac.

Men are what their mothers made them.

There’s been a lot of talk about Jack White wanting to work with me, and I’ve always admired him, and of course, he lives in Nashville, too.

Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.

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

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!

Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

The proper study of mankind is books.