This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room.

For me, a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its own music, its own integrity.

All you have in business is your reputation – so it’s very important that you keep your word.

I don’t think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged.

War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.

From my close observation of writers… they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review.

There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.

As I’ve said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hopes for Iraqis‘ future.

Politics is the womb in which war develops.

Something’s very wrong with a nation that would rather spend money on war than take care of its children.

There would be no Sherlock Holmes if it were not for serial publication.

I always want to listen to people and receive good criticism, but I just don’t have to answer to them; I have to answer to God.

The lyrics are constructed as empirically as the music. I don’t set out to say anything very important.

Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.

Naturally, there are times when every woman likes to be flattered… to feel she is the most important thing in someone’s world. Only a man can paint this picture.

‚Classic.‘ A book which people praise and don’t read.

Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

The best book, like the best speech, will do it all – make us laugh, think, cry and cheer – preferably in that order.

There is no just and serene criticism as yet.

You don’t have to be somebody different to be important. You’re important in your own right.

It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.

Law is always better than war.

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.

Some people think literature is high culture and that it should only have a small readership. I don’t think so… I have to compete with popular culture, including TV, magazines, movies and video games.

Football (soccer) is a matter of life and death, except more important.

I don’t think I’ve ever read poetry, ever. I’m not really book-smart.

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.

It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

In politics nothing is contemptible.

War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means.

A faction willing to take the risks of making war on the ossified status quo in the Middle East can be described as many things, but not as conservative.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

If something’s important enough, you should try. Even if – the probable outcome is failure.

In war, when a commander becomes so bereft of reason and perspective that he fails to understand the dependence of arms on Divine guidance, he no longer deserves victory.

And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too.

We lived in a tall, narrow Victorian house, which my parents had bought very cheaply during the war, when everyone thought London was going to be bombed flat. In fact, a V-2 rocket landed a few houses away from ours. I was away with my mother and sister at the time, but my father was in the house.

The oppression of any people for opinion’s sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important.

The mere brute pleasure of reading the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.

Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.

Sectional football games have the glory and the despair of war, and when a Texas team takes the field against a foreign state, it is an army with banners.

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

Life is an unanswered question, but let’s still believe in the dignity and importance of the question.

I did this book ‚Harvest for Hope,‘ and I learned so much about food. And one thing I learned is that we have the guts not of a carnivore, but of an herbivore. Herbivore guts are very long because they have to get the last bit of nutrition out of leaves and things.

Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated.

It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.

The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

Romcoms are hard in a lot of ways: they’re built to be buoyant. It’s easy to demean them.

There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.

The truest form of any form of revolutionary Left, whatever you want to call it, was Jack Kerouac, E.E. Cummings, & Ginsberg’s period. Excuse me, but that’s where it was at.

I think it’s a myth that American public or any other public is so stupid that they need to be constantly pricked.

I have been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improving the human condition.

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

We’ve persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people – a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it’s time to turn the page.

I don’t usually admire Sarah Palin, but when she was making fun of this ‚hopey changey stuff,‘ she was right: there was nothing there.

World War II broke out in 1939, and many people credit that war with saving the economy.

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

Why should I care about posterity? What’s posterity ever done for me?

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

The challenge of work-life balance is without question one of the most significant struggles faced by modern man.