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.

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

I’m a girls‘ girl. I have guy friends, but the problem with having guy friends is, like, I always get linked to them, and they’ll end up in a slideshow of people I’ve apparently dated on the Internet.

I respect Chris Brown. I’d like to call myself a friend – I don’t know if I’m allowed to do that.

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.

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.

We are nauseated by the sight of trivial personalities decomposing in the eternity of print.

If you can’t read, the only thing you can do is enjoy the pictures, not the whole story. Reading is the key to knowledge. Knowledge is the key to understanding. So read on, young man! Read on, young lady!

We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.

I have trouble reading modern Hebrew. In the 1950s, I could read anything. I don’t know how much experience you’ve had with contemporary Hebrew. It’s quite difficult.

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

To describe my scarce leisure time in today’s terms, I always default to reading.

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.

I am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.

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.

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.

You see the film, you might be entertained, and if it’s not a great film, it loses its power very quickly. I think even simply acceptable books stay with us a lot longer.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.

Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends.

One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.

I’ve known Ben Stiller for a minute. One of my first movies was ‚Along Came Polly.‘

Electrical science has revealed to us the true nature of light, has provided us with innumerable appliances and instruments of precision, and has thereby vastly added to the exactness of our knowledge.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

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.

When I was a kid, I read the science-fiction shelves, and I read the fantasy shelves.

Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software.

Shared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings.

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

It always seems to me so odd that when a man dies, he takes out with him all the knowledge that he has got in his lifetime whilst sowing his wild oats or winning successes. And he leaves his sons or younger brothers to go through all the work of learning it over again from their own experience.

My literature is much more the result of a paradox than that of an implacable logic, typical of police novels. The paradox is the tension that exists in my soul.

The less you know, the more you believe.

When ignorance gets started it knows no bounds.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?

If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence.

Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottage princes‘ palaces.

The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself.

I don’t look at a man who’s expert in one area as a specialist. I look at him as a rookie in ten other areas.

The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.

I don’t feel that I’m explaining the world or teaching people anything. And I’m not trying to be a mirror, showing them what’s really going on the world. All I’m trying to do is think of stuff that’s funny, just like when I’m kidding around with my friends.

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

I have discovered that my interest in my dear pupil, Mabel, has ripened into a far deeper feeling than that of mere friendship. In fact, I know that I have learned to love her very sincerely.

So many guys are so conservative with their hair, and I always joke with all my buddies when they mess with me, and I’ll say, ‚That’s right, keep the same haircut for ten years.‘ How fun is that?

We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.

No one even knows one percent of the fabulous history of Man; but thanks to history, we know about occurrences that go beyond the limits of the imaginable.

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

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.

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.

‚The Lady’s World‘ should be made the recognized organ for the expression of women’s opinions on all subjects of literature, art and modern life, and yet it should be a magazine that men could read with pleasure.

When you’re supposed to be close and friends in the film, the moment you’re talking as friends off the set, it makes it that much better when you’re filming.

The story as told in The Odyssey doesn’t hold water. There are too many inconsistencies.