“Everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowing.”

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.

Things are never as bad as they seem.

We’re paying the highest tribute you can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It’s that simple.

It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.

I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it.

You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.

I was born to be a leader. I love the fact that millions of people look up to me.

A veil of insanity everywhere: Oh why I was born in this age? It is a terrible age.

People are all born ignorant but they are not born stupid.

Great love is born of great knowledge of the thing that is loved, and if you do not know it, you can love it little or not at all.

Great moments are born great oppurtunity.