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

Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.

But sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down.

Writing is something you’ll never learn in any university or at any school. It’s something that is within you, and if it isn’t there, nothing can put it there.

There’s no substitute for the love of language, for the beauty of an English sentence. There’s no substitute for struggling, if a struggle is needed, to make an English sentence as beautiful as it should be.

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.

I do my best to love everybody.

Characters make their own plot. The dimensions of the characters determine the action of the novel.

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.

And I like people. I like to know what you’re really up to. I’m a bit of a nosey busy body. Why do they do the things they do? Why are they prepared to do the things they do to get what they want? When? Where? Who?

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.

Her eyes, indigo. Open honest and there is always a hint of curiosity – present.

My mum was too busy raising four of us to encourage my hopes. But I’m glad I had the upbringing I did. It made me a worrier and a thoughtful, curious person.

He’s a little bit you and a little bit me. But mostly he is himself. Filled with empathy, curiosity, and creativity. And wrapped in our love.

I am mystic bones and a curious heart. Pain and joy and stardust skin. A sacred soul container. Time and space and matter and illusion. Expansion and contraction. A breathing universe.

She likes to try everything, out of curiosity, but she’ll be sorry if she isn’t guided by her heart.

If knowledge is power, then curiosity is the muscle.