“One of the marks of a truly great mind, I had discovered, is the ability to feign stupidity on demand.”

During a long career in TV broadcasting, I spent a lot of time contributing to other people’s creations.

Anyone who knew the word slattern was worth cultivating as a friend.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: Inspiration from outside one’s self is like the heat in an oven.

The spectrum on the list is very broad. It includes leftists who think that whiny liberals should be stuffed in a sack and drowned.

If poisons were ponies, I’d put my money on cyanide.

Children have much more finely tuned senses of justice, morals, and ethics. They are much more Platonic: children are symmetrical, before we begin to fragment them with our own nonsensical ideas and squelch their natural joy in knowledge.

I love that form very much because the reader is so familiar with all of the types of characters that are in there that they already identify with the book.

I was a very early reader, so I was really brought up being surrounded with piles of British books and British newspapers, British magazines. I developed a really great love of England.

Except I’m aware that as a writer you can’t get away with as much writing for children as you can with adults.

To be most effective, flattery is always best applied with a trowel.

Then when the fugitive word was least expecting it I would suddenly turn the full blaze of my attention back onto it catching the culprit in the beam of my mental torch before it could sneak off again into the darkness.

Although it is pleasant to think about poison at any season, there is something special about Christmas, and I found myself grinning.

Whenever I’m with other people, part of me shrinks a little. Only when I am alone can I fully enjoy my own company.

To be frivolous time-wasters, delighted in putting her favorite volumes into her grandchildren’s hands.

I always knew that I wanted to work on my own material – something that would be more long-lasting than short-lived electronic transmissions.

I had long ago discovered that when a word or formula refused to come to mind the best thing for it was to think of something else: tigers for instance or oatmeal.

Her name is Wanda, not it. You will not touch her. Any mark you leave on her, I will double on your worthless hide.

I hope that I have given happiness to others. I hope I have given children to the world, and that I have made some kind of a mark for myself here.

Words, like cannon balls, should go direct to their mark.

The mark of greatness is when everything before you is obsolete, and everything after you bears your mark.

You know, be able to do something great in your life, you’re gonna have to realize your failures. You’re gonna have to embrace them and figure out how to overcome it.

Success always leaves footprints.

I’m going to fail to hit the mark I’ve put up before me because it’s not possible to hit it. I want to be the best at what I do so I’ve got to get over myself already because that’s never going to happen. I ain’t ever going to be God.

Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.