You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.

I took the vow of celibacy in 1906. I had not shared my thoughts with my wife until then, but only consulted her at the time of making the vow. She had no objection.

I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I’m not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.

We must distinguish between speaking to deceive and being silent to be reserved.

I usually don’t like to ‚spoon feed‘ my audience, because I grew up idolizing story tellers who tell stories using symbolism, so it was in my nature to do the same.

Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.

Being a good listener is absolutely critical to being a good leader; you have to listen to the people who are on the front line.

It’s all make believe, isn’t it?

The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.

Language is an intrinsic part of who we are and what has, for good or evil, happened to us.

Advertising works most effectively when it’s in line with what people are already trying to do. And people are trying to communicate in a certain way on Facebook – they share information with their friends, they learn about what their friends are doing – so there’s really a whole new opportunity for a new type of advertising model within that.

When people are connected, we can just do some great things. They have the opportunity to get access to jobs, education, health, communications. We have the opportunity to bring the people we care about closer to us. It really makes a big difference.

By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

The human race is governed by its imagination.

There was one incident at a movie theater where my girl got mad at these guys who were talking behind us. I never looked back there, but she was like, ‚Will you all just shut up!‘ And I just got up and moved three rows in front. She was like, ‚What are you doing?!‘ I was like, ‚You better get up here! I don’t play the fighting games.‘

We’re all going to die, all of us; what a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities. We are eaten up by nothing.

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

I make friends faster and easier than journalists.

There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.

People use irony as a defense mechanism.

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

Green Eggs and Ham was the story of my life. I wouldn’t eat a thing when I was a kid, but Dr. Seuss inspired me to try cauliflower!

Stories lie deep in our souls. Stories lie so deep at the bottom of our hearts that they can bring people together on the deepest level. When I write a novel, I go into such depths.

For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it.

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.

A man is more frank and sincere with his emotions than a woman. We girls, I’m afraid, have a tendency to hide our feelings.

In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand.

Better understated than overstated. Let people be surprised that it was more than you promised and easier than you said.

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

I hope that Facebook and other Internet technologies were able to help people, just like we hope that we help them communicate and organize and do whatever they want to every single day, but I don’t pretend that if Facebook didn’t exist, that this wouldn’t even be possible. Of course, it would have.

I guess every single word I’ve ever said is going to be dissected now.

At first, I was scared to show fear because you can never be sure how people will perceive you. But I dared myself to do that, to stand out. Now I’ll talk about being beaten up or robbed or making a stupid decision because of a girl or whatever.

The first stories I wrote when I was 12 were about Mars and landing on Mars.

One has children in the expectation of dying before them. In fact, you want to make damn sure you die before them, just as you plant a tree or build a house knowing, hoping that it will outlive you. That’s how the human species has done as well as it has.

The human wish to credit good things as miraculous and to charge bad things to another account is apparently universal.

I don’t have any oratory skills. But I would not use them if I had.

When he speaks to you he speaks with an earnest vibe and an earnest energy.

I wrote a few children’s books… not on purpose.

It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

Swearing is industry language. For as long as we’re alive it’s not going to change. You’ve got to be boisterous to get results.

I think one of the basic reasons men make good friends is that they can make up their minds quickly.

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.

People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.

I don’t like to talk much with people who always agree with me. It is amusing to coquette with an echo for a little while, but one soon tires of it.

I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterwards.

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.

Nobody’s ever said that pins are a tool of diplomacy.

The book is not really the container for the book. The book itself is the narrative. It’s the thing that people create.

War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man.

Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.

I once did a three-hour interview with Radio Oxford only to be told the microphone hadn’t picked me up.

I’ve always regretted that I never was able to talk openly with my parents, especially with my father. I’ve heard and read so many things about my family that I can no longer believe anything; every relative I question has a completely different story from the last.

I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another when the best fruit is.

Tell the truth, but tell it slant.

My parents had us in church every Sunday, every Wednesday. It was more of a tradition at that point; I didn’t have a personal relationship with the Lord until I went to the altar call one Sunday, and the youth pastor told us to make a decision for ourselves.

I don’t think there’s such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

Girls talk to each other like men talk to each other. But girls have an eye for detail.