“Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screeneed porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape.”

The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that.

Writing is a process of self-discipline you must learn before you can call yourself a writer. There are people who write, but I think they’re quite different from people who must write.

My objectives are very limited. I want to do the best I can with the talent God gave me. I hope to goodness that every novel I do gets better and better, not worse and worse.

Rest assured, as long as I am alive any book purporting to be with my cooperation is a falsehood.

The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

Sometimes it’s better to bend the law a little in special cases.

Things are always better in the morning.

With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable.

Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women – black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.

As a reader I loathe introductions…Introductions inhibit pleasure, they kill the joy of anticipation, they frustrate curiosity.

Ladies pick funny things to be proud of.

I’m still old-fashioned. I love dusty old books and libraries.

As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don’t think you are the most important being on earth. Rich or poor, you then can look anyone in the eye and say, ‘I’m probably no better than you, but I’m certainly your equal.

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion faster than adults, and evasion simply muddles ’em.

Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself.

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

Where the heart is the mind works best.

My latest found, Heaven’s last, best gift, my ever new delight!

Never tell all you know—not even to the person you know best.

Honesty is the best policy, in love as in law.

The best apology against false accusers is silence.

Perhaps my best years are gone. When there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn’t want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn’t want them back.

Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best.

Katya is literally my flesh and blood. Best friend status.