Truly Alice, books are wonderful things; to sit alone in a room and laugh and cry, because you are reading, and still be safe when you close the book; and having finished it, discover you are changed, yet unchanged! To be able to visit the City of Invention at will, depart at will – that is all, really, education is about, should be about.

No one should be allowed to give back the gift of life, unless they are very old and full of tears, when the body outlives the spirit, when they should be allowed to join the others who've already gone.

There was no such thing as defeat if you didn't accept it.

People hear what they want and expect to hear, not what is said.

Confidence is something one acquires. It can come early or late but it is impossible to write without it. Mine came late.

Style is what's there when you look at someone's writing and you know that they wrote it and nobody else did.

one tends to suspect others of what one is guilty of oneself. The unfaithful wife is quick to suspect the husband of infidelity.