“The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that.”

Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women – black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.

As a reader I loathe introductions…Introductions inhibit pleasure, they kill the joy of anticipation, they frustrate curiosity.

Ladies pick funny things to be proud of.

I’m still old-fashioned. I love dusty old books and libraries.

As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don’t think you are the most important being on earth. Rich or poor, you then can look anyone in the eye and say, ‘I’m probably no better than you, but I’m certainly your equal.

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion faster than adults, and evasion simply muddles ’em.

Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself.

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

Things are never as bad as they seem.

We’re paying the highest tribute you can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It’s that simple.

Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they’re not attracting attention with it.

I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.

I do much of my creative thinking while golfing. If people know you’re working at home they think nothing of walking in for a cup of coffee, but wouldn’t dream of interrupting on the golf course.

Are you proud of yourself tonight that you have insulted a total stranger whose circumstances you know nothing about?

Everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowing.

Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screeneed porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape.

Prayer needs neither learning, wisdom or book knowledge to begin it. It needs nothing but heart and will.

You really ought to read more books – you know, those things that look like blocks but come apart on one side.

I suppose books mean more than people to me anyway

The object of the Bible is not to tell how good men are, but how bad men can become good.

Many writers tend to write summing-up books at the end of their lives.

The Scriptures were not given to increase our knowledge, but to change our lives.

Academic education is the act of memorizing things read in books, and things told by college professors who got their education mostly by memorizing things read in books.

Out of 100 men, one will read the Bible, the other 99 will read the Christian.