“Obscurity is never a virtue.”

There are a whole lot of things in this world of ours you haven’t started wondering about yet.

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

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you.

You should never, never doubt something that no one is sure of.

Nowadays you can go anywhere in the world in a few hours, and nothing is fabulous any more.

If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.

Grown ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets.

Then suddenly, he was struck by a powerful but simple little truth, and it was this: that English grammar is governed by rules that are almost mathematical in their strictness!

Having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it.

You chose books, I chose looks . Now see the difference?

When you’re old enough to write a book for children, by then you’ll have become a grown up and have lost all your jokeyness. Unless you’re an undeveloped adult and still have an enormous amount of childishness in you.

Candy is dandy but liqueur is quicker.

Give us strength, oh Lord, to let our children starve.

Do you know what breakfast cereal is made of? It’s made of all those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners!

Two rights don’t equal a left.

The reason I collect good ideas is because plots themselves are very difficult indeed to come by.

Virtue alone is not sufficient for the exercise of government; laws alone cannot carry themselves into practice.

Forgiveness is the virtue of Brave.

Whoever passes forty without his virtue overpowering his vice, let him get ready for hellfire. This advice contains enough for people of knowledge.

Teach you children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.

Without courage there cannot be truth, and without truth there can be no other virtue.

The paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace.

Suspicion is a virtue as long as its object is the public good, and as long as it stays within proper bounds. Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.

Suffering — how divine it is, how misunderstood! We owe to it all that is good in us, all that gives value to life; we owe to it pity, we owe to it courage, we owe to it all the virtues.