“Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had. And when you are reading a book, you and the author are alone together-just the two of you.”

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

The so-called science of poll-taking is not a science at all but mere necromancy. People are unpredictable by nature, and although you can take a nation’s pulse, you can’t be sure that the nation hasn’t just run up a flight of stairs.

One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.

Oh, I never look under the hood.

A writer should concern himself with whatever absorbs his fancy, stirs his heart, and unlimbers his typewriter. … A writer has the duty to be good, not lousy: true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.

There is nothing more likely to start disagreement among people or countries than an agreement.

I’ve got a new friend, all right. But what a gamble friendship is! Charlotte is fierce, brutal, scheming, bloodthirsty-everything I don’t like. How can I learn to like her, even though she is pretty and, of course, clever?

We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.

Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.

Stuart rose from the ditch, climbed into his car, and started up the road that led toward the north…As he peeked ahead into the great land that stretched before him, the way seemed long. But the sky was bright, and he somehow felt he was headed in the right direction.

A despot doesn’t fear eloquent writers preaching freedom- he fears a drunken poet who may crack a joke that will take hold.

The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind.

Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people– people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.

Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.

A writer’s style reveals something of his spirit, his habits, his capacites, his bias…it is the Self escaping into the open.

It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck.

Love is a privilege perception, the most total and lucid not only of the unreality of the world but of our own unreality

The most important thing to me is my work, and reaching people through my work.

And most of these pilots were lost during the first five flights.

I think that one of the most fundamental responsibilities is to give testimony in a court of law, to give it honestly and willingly.

Most people are unhappy with the emergence of complexity

I am a guilty party here – to take, or get, undue credit for domestic virtue, when in truth cooking is the most painless and, in its ways, ostentatious of the domestic chores.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the most sweeping civil rights legislation of its day, and included women’s rights as part of its reforms.

Most of the actors have said “this is the best role they’ve ever had.” So you know, that’s important to me.