Every accepted public quote

“Writers cannot choose their own mood: with them it is not always hide-tide, nor --thank Heaven!--always Storm.”

“The good thing about writing a novel is that you're creating an imaginary world and can take a break when you need to.”

“That's why when major badasses greet each other in movies, they don't say anything, they just nod. The nod means, 'I' am a badass, and I recognize that you, too, are a badass,' but they don'...”

“Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.”

“Never give in - never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”

“Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”

“There's plenty of water in the universe without life, but nowhere is there life without water.”

“True, our knowledge does grow, but it is threatened by greater increases in confidence, which make our increase in knowledge at the same time an increase in confusion, ignorance, and conceit...”

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

“I fantasised about F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' - I loved it, and then I read everything J. D. Salinger had to offer. Then I was turned on to Kerouac, and his spontaneous prose,...”

“It usually takes me two or three days to prepare an impromptu speech.”

“All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.”

“I just write what I wanted to write. I write what amuses me. It's totally for myself. I never in my wildest dreams expected this popularity.”

“When I started dating I had this kind of Romeo and Juliet, fateful romantic idea about love which was almost that you were a victim and there was a lot of pain involved and that was how it s...”

“When your will is God's will, you will have your will.”

“The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.”

“Our history is an inevitable component of our being. One thing only can release us from the grip of our history. That one thing is forgiveness.”

“Throughout my years, I've had the pleasure of assembling and training what I believe to be the best group of people in the world. People with the presence of mind to deal with any flare-up,...”

“I let her go because I knew she could do better and now she's gone I wonder if I should've just been better.”

“Charm is a product of the unexpected.”

“Something went klunk. Like a nickel dropping in a soda machine. One of those small insights that explains everything. This was puberty for these boys. Adolescence. The first date, the first...”

“Madness and chaos are self-destructing but over thinking is the suicide.”

“Cheapen words and they'll cheapen you”

“Education is discovering your full potential and flourishing that potential for the benefit of the humanity.”

“The only shortcut I have found to life is to sharpen my teeth on the bones of the wise.”

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

“Adam smiled cheerily. Ronan would start wars and burn cities for that true smile, elastic and amiable.”

“It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.”

“We have no right to express an opinion until we know all of the answers.”

“This thing all things devours: Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel; Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town, And beats high mountain down.”

“No man is ever just one thing.”

“If you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you'll end up miserable.”

“Everything flows, nothing stays still.”

“We should strive for steadiness, and for a commitment to God that does not ebb and flow with the years or the crises of our lives.”

“Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband...”

“The only person who can pull me down is myself, and I'm not going to let myself pull me down anymore.”

“There are no good girls gone wrong - just bad girls found out.”

“It takes lives to save lives.”

“I do not believe anyone can be perfectly well, who has a brain and a heart”

“I believe acknowledging our own mistakes is half the problem solved.”

“All grown-ups were once children... but only few of them remember it.”

“Because I'm short and slim, I can identify with somebody who's an unlikely fit for something and desperately wants to be part of it.”

“Death waits for no man - and if he does, he doesn't usually wait for very long.”

“'Sherlock' fans are, by and large, an intelligent breed, so they've gone through my back catalogue and got what I've done, why and how I've done it. There is some obsessive behaviour, but I...”

“Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells within you?”

“While you can see the beauty in almost everything; there are others that see nothing but ugliness in the world. They disparage everything and one must wonder, do they find pleasure in condem...”

“God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that giv...”

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is...”