The degradation to which you subject others comes back, sooner or later, to haunt you.

I’ve worked with volunteers before,” he began. “It’s important not to… not to treat them like servants. We may feel that they are laboring to obtain a heavenly reward, and should therefore work harder than they would for money; but they don’t necessarily take that attitude. They feel they’re working for nothing, and doing a great kindness to us thereby; and if we seem ungrateful they will work slowly and make mistakes. It will be best to rule them with a light touch.

I like reading history, and actually most authors enjoy the research part because it is, after all, easier than writing.

Culture clash is terrific drama.

I have quite a few different Bibles. Having rejected my parents' religion, I still think the King James Bible is the most important work of literature in English. None of us can help being influenced by it.

It was an odd thing to do, to stand in a street in the hope of seeing someone who hardly knew him, but he did not want to move.

For success, the author must make the reader care about the destiny of the principals, and sustain this anxiety, or suspense, for about 100,000 words.