Saudi Arabia is a puritanical state that claims a monopoly of wisdom and virtue.

Well, well, Henry James is pretty good, though he is of the nineteenth century, and that glaringly.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Given that external reality is a fiction, the writer's role is almost superfluous. He does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.

J. G. Ballard

A learned man is an idler who kills time with study. Beware of his false knowledge it is more dangerous than ignorance.

George Bernard Shaw

If you don't give up, you still have a chance. And when you are small, you have to be very focused and rely on your brain, not your strength.

Jack Ma

The inner spaces that a good story lets us enter are the old apartments of religion.

John Updike

Ciascuno esamini i propri pensieri: li trover? sempre occupati dal passato e dall'avvenire. Non pensiamo quasi mai al presente, o se ci pensiamo, è solo per prenderne lume al fine di predisporre l'avvenire. Il presente non è mai il nostro fine: il passato o il presente sono i nostri mezzi; solo l'avvenire è il nostro fine. Così non viviamo mai, ma speriamo di vivere, e, preparandoci sempre ad essere felici, è inevitabile che non siamo mai tali.

Blaise Pascal

Being an actor is the loneliest thing in the world. You are all alone with your concentration and imagination, and that's all you have.

James Dean

Develop an interest in life as you see it the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.

Henry Miller

Qualities you need to get through medical school and residency: Discipline. Patience. Perseverance. A willingness to forgo sleep. A penchant for sadomasochism. Ability to weather crises of faith and self-confidence. Accept exhaustion as fact of life. Addiction to caffeine a definite plus. Unfailing optimism that the end is in sight.

Khaled Hosseini

The verse adorn again Fierce War, and faithful Love, And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction drest.

Thomas Gray

My children are magical creatures and I love them to death.

Jack Black

It has always been difficult for Man to realize that his life is all an art. It has been more difficult to conceive it so than to act it so. For that is always how he has more or less acted it.

Havelock Ellis