A writer and nothing else; a man alone in a room with the English language, trying to get human feelings right.

War is a defeat for humanity.

Pope John Paul II

The correct understanding of life, let me tell you, is love despite everything. Love despite everything, that is the aim and object of life. Love, you see, is the only thing that pays in the long run, even though it might seem a dead loss in the short run.

Halldór Laxness

If you say, I love you, then you have already fallen in love with language, which is already a form of break up and infidelity.

Jean Baudrillard

Let's get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn't to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.

Stephen King

We need to recognise that what really matters isn't buying more and more consumer goods, but family, friends, and knowing that we are doing something worthwhile with our lives. Helping to reduce the appalling consequences of world poverty should be part of that reassessment.

Peter Singer

Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one's own Trojan horse.

Rebecca West

Unity and simplicity are the two true sources of beauty.

Johann Joachim Winckelmann

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

William James

I think of doing a series as very hard work. But then I've talked to coal miners, and that's really hard work.

William Shatner

Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

General George Patton

He kept his eyes on mine, his gaze unblinking, and I stared right back into the blue. He moved almost imperceptibly and in the space between a heartbeat his lips touched mine.

Sarah Alderson

The fear of burglars is not only the fear of being robbed, but also the fear of a sudden and unexpected clutch out of the darkness.

Elias Canetti