Everyone knows how people who laugh easily create us by their laughter,--making us think of funnier and funnier things.

Now some people when they sit down to write and nothing special comes, no good ideas, are so frightened that they drink a lot of strong coffee to hurry them up, or smoke packages of cigarettes, or take drugs or get drunk. They do not know that ideas come slowly, and that the more clear, tranquil and unstimulated you are, the slower the ideas come, but the better they are.

Science and vivisection make no appeal to a theological idea, much less a political one. You can argue with a theologian or a politician, but doctors are sacrosanct. They know; you do not. Science has its mystique much more powerful than any religion active today.

it is when you are really living in the present-working, thinking, lost, absorbed in something you care about very much, that you are living spiritually.

The best way to know the Truth or Beauty is to try to express it.

No writing is a waste of time – no creative work where the feelings, the imagination, the intelligence must work. With every sentence you write, you have learned something. It has done you good.

The only good teachers for you are those friends who love you, who think you are interesting, or very important, or wonderfully funny.