“Now we are all fallen, youth from their fear, And age from that which bred it, good example.”

Whom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty.

It is the highest of earthly honors to be descended from the great and good. They alone cry out against a noble ancestry who have none of their own.

Ambition, like a torrent, ne’er looks back; And is a swelling, and the last affection A high mind can put off; being both a rebel Unto the soul and reason, and enforceth All laws, all conscience, treads upon religion, and offereth violence to nature’s self.

Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a prince as many funerals a physician.

It holds for good polity ever, to have that outwardly in vilest estimation, which inwardly is most dear to us.

I now think, Love is rather deaf, than blind, For else it could not be, That she, Whom I adore so much, should so slight me, And cast my love behind.

Indeed there’s a woundy luck in names.

Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace Robes loosely flowing, hair as free Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art: They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries: to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style.

Sweet meat must have sour sauce.

Language most shows a man; speak that I may see thee; it springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man’s form or likeness so true as his speech.

The burnt child dreads the fire.

Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame a flatterer.

Greatness of name, in the father, ofttimes helps not forth, but overwhelms the son: They stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth.

Nor use too swelling, or ill-sounded words . . . .

I do honor the very flea of his dog.

All this time i’ve hated myself for it. I thought i’d given it up for nothing. But if i hadn’t fallen, i wouldn’t have met you.

But if i hadn’t fallen, i wouldn’t have met you.

With a novelist, like a surgeon, you have to get a feeling that you’ve fallen into good hands – someone from whom you can accept the anesthetic with confidence.

I love technology – yes, I have fallen in love with older cars, but I’m all for new technology.

In the U.S., we really have fallen short of road-racing facilities that have kept up with the times, unfortunately, but it’s a fact.

If you say, I love you, then you have already fallen in love with language, which is already a form of break up and infidelity.

Advances have fallen, generally, for everything except the biggest potential bestsellers.

The art of the novel, however, has fallen into such a state of stagnation – a lassitude acknowledged and discussed by the whole of critical opinion – that it is hard to imagine such an art can survive for long without some radical change.