The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting.

One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in the sixth book of Confessions, where he describes the awakening in him of the literary sense. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most.

Walter Pater

There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up, and the kind you make up.

Rex Stout

All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.

Henry David Thoreau

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

I have to work really hard, eight shows a week, to get a nice check as an actor. But when I write a play, and it's a - knock wood - hit, the checks come in for many years.

Harvey Fierstein

Put a knife to thy throat, if you're a man given to appetite.

Bible

Science fiction, outside of poetry, is the only literary field which has no limits, no parameters whatsoever.

Theodore Sturgeon

It pays to get drunk with the best people.

Joe E. Lewis

The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation; certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the Press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it: he cannot grow or mature.

Octavio Paz

Is there anything science should not try to explain? Science is knowledge and knowledge is power - power to do good or evil. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Paul Davies

I know it does make people happy, but to me it is just like having a cup of tea.

Cynthia Payne

Skepticism, is that anything more than we used to mean when we said, Well, what have we here?

Robert Frost