When you start about family, about lineage and ancestry, you are talking about every person on earth.

Is this how you repay my goodness--with badness?” cried the boy. “Of course,” said the crocodile out of the corner of his mouth. “That is the way of the world.

The way to succeed is never quit. That's it. But really be humble about it. ... You start out lowly and humble and you carefully try to learn an accretion of little things that help you get there.

My parents were teachers and they went out of their way to see to it that I had books. We grew up in a home that was full of books. And so I learned to read. I loved to read.

Most of us prefer to be as quiet as possible about giving, because every time it's publicized that we do something, if it's something of the nature of giving, we'll be doubly besieged, and you really get sick of being always criticized no matter what you do.

I think most people when you say slavery tend to see a group of anonymous people pulling cotton sacks in great plantation fields, and that is largely true.

Your attitude is everything. Believe in yourself and trust your material. To be a successful writer, write every single day where you feel like it or not. Never, never give up, and the world will reward you beyond your wildest dreams.