The only way you can truly get more out of life for yourself is to give part of yourself away.

If only there was a vaccine to protect against breast cancer, we'd be lining up - wouldn't we?

I found myself in a sea in which the waves of joy and sorrow were clashing against each other.

There is no faster way of destroying a man, or mocking his ideas, than making him fashionable.

I'm a tourist, a glorified tourist. I'm not doing it to have a good time or to lie in the sun.

I don't want to become too self-conscious - it's why I never read reviews, even the good ones.

After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.

I am a strong believer in the tyranny, the dictatorship, the absolute authority of the writer.

For a human being, nothing comes naturally,' said Grumman. 'We have to learn everything we do.

It's not easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first

I am a control freak but it's important to feel strongly about the material you're working on.

For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I could only be me.

A loving soul was always more beautiful over the long haul, but actual prettiness was fleeting.

Exactly! We run or we lose ourselves in something, somebody, anything to try and ease our pain.

She cared about him too much, and he was a dangerous person to love. He wouldn't love her back.

I think our material is our lives. That's part of being a modern writer, and we have to use it.

Essential characteristic of the really great novelist: a Christ-like, all-embracing compassion.

Literature exists so that where one man has lived finely ten thousand may afterward live finely

I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.

Don't you loathe it when doctors use the word 'we' when it applies only and solely to yourself?

For why trap what is already trapped? It is only in flight that we know the freedom of the bird

By the time I was 12, I was reading my parents' books because there weren't teenage books then.

What I find is that you can do almost anything or go almost anywhere, if you're not in a hurry.

I don't think that it's possible to have a truly rewarding experience in travel if it's simple.

If a nation allows its literary culture to die, it's a sign that it doesn't fundamentally care.

It takes a great deal of courage to stand alone even if you believe in something very strongly.

You want to come up with your own points of view first and then test them against what you see.

I don't spend a lot of time in nature. Probably less than most people that live in urban Texas.

I can't waste more time worrying unless something surfaces that should legitimately cause fear.

Objectivity can only be the author's and therefore subjective, even if he is editing a newsreel.

But certain souls cohere. It's rare but possible. But it takes two powerful wills to make it so.

I allowed myself to suffer how jarringly destructive the present feels and how fragile the past.

It is hard to hold on to friendships when people move away to another state or to another world.

But please remember: this is only a work of fiction. The truth, as always, will be far stranger.

Death focuses the mind on the things that really matter: why are we here, and what should we do?

One theory which can no longer be taken very seriously is that UFOs are interstellar spaceships.

The shuffle only demonstrated people's fatuous belief in a political cure for a human condition.

I'd spent so many years doing things I didn't really want to do for people I didn't really like.

Money is nothing more than a tool. It can be a force for good, a force for evil, or simply idle.

There is an eternal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for its outline all our lives.

Very odd, old age. Always knew it would happen, if I was lucky. I just didn't expect it so soon.

Prizes are like butterflies, colorful butterflies that fly away. I don't believe in prizes much.

The Koran and the laws of all civilized nations legislate against the vilification of religions.

Today's interpretations of religion are often backward and contradict the needs of civilization.

The job of the travel writer is to go far and wide, to make voluminous notes, to tell the truth.

My parents tolerated me reading comics because they knew I was also reading 'proper' books, too.

Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines.

People sometimes talk about the power of first impressions, and believe me, there is truth to it.

The phone was her worst enemy and her best friend but she never knew which until she answered it.

In the long run, there are no secrets. in science. The universe will not cooperate in a cover-up.

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