There are some who say that sitting at home reading is the equivalent of travel, because the experiences described in the book are more or less the same as the experiences one might have on a voyages, and there are those who say that there is no substitute for venturing out into the world. My own opinion is that it is best to travel extensively but to read the entire time, hardly glancing up to look out of the window of the airplane, train, or hired camel.

When you start reading nonfiction books about piracy, you realize that it's actually just a history of desperate people.

This is an absurd moral, for you and I both know that sometimes not only is it good to lie, it is necessary to lie.

I can't think of a story that doesn't have something terrible in it. Otherwise, it's dull. So when I embarked into the world of picture books, my first thought was to do something about the dark.

If you don’t care about something, one way to demonstrate your feelings is to say the word and then repeat the word with the letters S-C-H-M replacing the first letters. Somebody who didn’t care about dentists, for instance could say ‘Dentist, schmentists.

I'm sure you have heard it said that appearance does not matter so much, and that it is what's on the inside that counts. This is, of course, utter nonsense, because if it were true then people who were good on this inside would would never have to comb their hair or take a bath, and the whole world would smell even worse than it already does.

Having an aura of menace is like having a pet weasel, because you rarely meet someone who has one, and when you do, it makes you want to hide under the coffee table.