“He was fond of books, for they are cool and sure friends.”

There is nothing like a dream to create the future.

Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.

Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men.

Go out in the world and work like money doesn’t matter, sing as if no one is listening, love as if you have never been hurt, and dance as if no one is watching.

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.

Diamonds are to be found only in the darkness of the earth, and truth in the darkness of the mind.

The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the fainthearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal.

To love another person is to see the face of God.

The soul helps the body, and at certain moments raises it. It is the only bird that sustains its cage.

To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.

You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.

Not seeing people permits us to imagine them with every perfection.

If you are stone, be magnetic; if a plant, be sensitive; but if you are human be love.

Love is life, if it is not death.

Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.

Our mind is enriched by what we receive, our heart by what we give.

Historian Robert Paxton begins one of his books by asserting: Fascism was the major political innovation of the twentieth century, and the source of much of its pain.

Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea.

Starting a novel is opening a door on a misty landscape; you can still see very little but you can smell the earth and feel the wind blowing.

We used to root for the Indians against the cavalry because we didn’t think it was fair in the history books that when the cavalry won it was a great victory, and when the Indians won it was a massacre.

Above all, except the wife and children, I want to see my books.

Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you’re going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don’t be afraid to go in your library and read every book.

I would much rather be known as the mother of a great son than the author of a great book or the painter of a great masterpiece.

Don’t be afraid to go to your library and read every book as long as any document does not offend your own ideas of decency.