I didn't know my Dad - he moved out early. And my mom's politics were kind of hardscrabble. She didn't think about Democrats or Republicans. She thought about who made sense. I've been both in my life.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Benjamin Franklin

I'm a morning person because I learned to write my novels while still practicing law. I would get to the office at 6:30 a.m. and write until other people arrived, around 9. Now I still do that. I start at 6:30 or 7, and I'll write until 11, then take an hour off, then work until about 2 p.m. By then my brain has had enough.

Steve Berry

I was trying to write then and I found the greatest difficulty, aside from knowing what you really felt, rather that what you were supposed to feel, and had been taught to feel, was to put down what really happened in action; what the actual things which produced the emotion that you experienced...

Ernest Hemingway

I absolutely don't think a sentient artificial intelligence is going to wage war against the human species.

Daniel H. Wilson

If you hope for happiness in the world, hope for it from God, and not from the world.

David Brainerd

The difference between a smart man and a wise man is that a smart man knows what to say, a wise man knows whether or not to say it.

Frank M. Garafola

Truth is naturally universal...and shines into many different windows, though many are clouded.

Anya Seton

Bath twice a day to be really clean, once a day to be passably clean, once a week to avoid being a public menace.

Anthony Burgess

He had never been interested in stories at any age, and had never quite understood the basic concept. He'd never read a work of fiction all the way through. He did remember, as a small boy, being really annoyed at the depiction of Hickory Dickory Dock in a rag book of nursery rhymes because the clock in the drawing was completely wrong for the period.

Terry Pratchett

I have cancer. Cancer doesn't have me.

Marco Calderon

We consider that any man who can fiddle all through one of those Virginia Reels without losing his grip, may be depended upon in any kind of musical emergency.

Mark Twain

We didn't start the fireIt was always burningSince the world's been turningWe didn't start the fireNo we didn't light itBut we tried to fight it

Billy Joel