“Sometimes I see myself reflected too closely in other men for comfort, and then I have an enormous wish to believe in the saints, in heroic virtue.”

Human nature is not black and white but black and grey.

Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector.

People who like quotes love meaningless generalizations.

One has no talent. I have no talent. It’s just a question of working, of being willing to put in the time.

As long as nothing happens anything is possible.

The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You’re there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see – every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.

Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.

All good novelists have bad memories. What you remember comes out as journalism; what you forget goes into the compost of the imagination.

A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.

Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism.

She mixes religion with desertion to make it sound noble.

I had never known her before and I had never loved her so much. The more we know the more we love, I thought.

It is one of the strange discoveries a man can make that life, however you lead it, contains moments of exhilaration; there are always comparisons which can be made with worse times: even in danger and misery the pendulum swings.

In human relationships, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.

A single feat of daring can alter the whole conception of what is possible.

It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

Who couldn’t believe there’s a God?

You are what you is, you is what you am, you ain’t what you’re not. So see what you got?

Thank you for believing in my weirdness!

I believe that forgiving them is god’s function, our job is to arrange the meeting.

In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission.

The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying ‘this is mine’, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.

Leap and the net will appear.

Great things happen to those who don’t stop believing, trying, learning, and being grateful.