I came to believe it not true that "the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one." I think it is the other way around: It is the brave who die a thousand deaths. For it is imagination, and not just conscience, which doth make cowards of us all. Those who do not know fear are not truly brave.

In the dark colony of night, when I consider man's magnificent capacity for malice, madness, folly, envy, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the words in all the books with covers closed.

When in trouble, mumble.

People say: idle curiosity. The one thing that curiosity cannot be is idle.

Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.

Some things are so unexpected that no one is prepared for them.

Thinking is harder work than hard work.