Wisdom

I've stopped reading about the death of books because it's wasteful and morbid and insulting to the authors, agents, publishers, booksellers, critics, and readers that keep the world community of fiction interesting.

Don't thank me for telling the truth when it would have been mercy to lie to you.

Recollection, I have found, is usually about half invention...

Secrets are never so dangerous as when they've been forgotten.

Denial does not change reality for everyone else. Only for the one denying and those who are foolish enough to believe the fantasy.

The emotional tone or affect of the tale should be hot and engaged, not remote and dispassionate.

You think her innocent/ Your little lost girl/ Caped in Inquisition red/ Yet when she leads you hunting Hyde/ Mind don't slay Jekyll in his stead.

Passion and prejudice govern the world only under the name of reason.

By just looking at a different direction than others, you may gain the vision of a genius because geniuses often do this!

What should you, O man, do, you who seek your own glory whenever you do anything good, while when you do something bad, you figure out ways to blame God.

Most people don't mind being stupid, insomuch that they do not appear stupid; appearance and being are seldom simultaneous, congruent, and conclusive.

Honour was like a coat: sometimes one did not have time to put it on.

Ah, but is it not the mind that is the real grace of Homo sapiens? All the things to think about! All the things to read and appreciate! All the arts! All the things of the spirit!

Mon cher docteur! Do you not think I know the female mentality? The village gossip, it is based always, always on the relations of the sexes. If a man poisons his wife in order to travel to the North Pole or to enjoy the peace of a bachelor existence—it would not interest his fellow-villagers for a minute!

Men always makes gods in their own image.

Light is the magician of the cosmos.

You want to remember that while you're judging the book, the book is also judging you.

Surprising choice proves hardest to come by. Most choices, even the disastrous ones, are predictable.

Predominant opinions are generally the opinions of the generation that is vanishing.

The Specters feast as vampires feast on blood, but the Specters’ food is attention. A conscious and informed interest in the world. The immaturity of children is less attractive to them.