“For walk where we will, we tread upon some story.”

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

While there’s life, there’s hope.

Freedom is participation in power.

It is a great thing to know your vices.

Nothing stands out so conspicuously, or remains so firmly fixed in the memory, as something which you have blundered.

Books: our unfailing companions.

To be rather than to seem.

Endless money forms the sinews of war.

Love is the attempt to form a friendship inspired by beauty.

Cultivation of the mind is as necessary as food to the body.

The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.

The causes of events are ever more interesting than the events themselves.

In all matters, before beginning, a diligent preparation should be made.

To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic.

The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.

We are bound by the law, so that we may be free.

Nobody gets to tell your story.

If you own this story you get to write the ending.

I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

People think you have to go through something to write about it, and you absolutely do not. You can write about, like, a shoe. It’s a story.

The stories we love best do live in us forever.

My favorite thing in the world is telling stories, and most of what I do is telling stories through music.

My story is definitely going to be a happily ever after, no matter what.

Every success story is a tale of constant adaption, revision and change.