I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they'll 'say something about it' or not. I hate if they do, and if they don't.

Extraordinary things only happen to extraordinary people. Maybe it's a sign that you've got an extraordinary destiny--something greater than you could've imagined.

Man's conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature's conquest of Man.

If they won't write the kind of books we like to read we shall have to write them ourselves.

Being nice doesn’t make you stupid. It makes you feel good because you know you are gracious enough to forgive and smart enough to realize how distasteful some people can be.

As the king governs by his executive, so Reason in man must rule the mere appetites by means of the 'spirited element.'

I never fully understood it till my friend Professor Tolkien asked me the very simple question, 'What class of men would you expect to be most preoccupied with, and hostile to, the idea of escape?' and gave the obvious answer: jailers.