Are you slow-witted? I'm so sorry for you. It's terrible to be dull and stupid.

Life's a forge - Yes, and hammer and anvil, too. You'll be roasted, smelted, and pounded, and you'll scarce know what's happening to you. But stand proudly to it. Metal's worthless till it is shaped and tempered. More labor than luck. Face the pounding, don't fear the proving; and you'll stand well against any hammer and anvil.

In the race of men is much greed and envy; but of truth, little.

Paradoxically, in fantasy for young people I was able to express my own deepest feelings and attitudes more than I had ever done in writing for adults.

Once you have courage to look upon evil, seeing it for what it is and naming it by its true name, it is powerless against you, and you can destroy it.

...righteousness [is] always more believable when combined with dreariness.

Books can truly change our lives: the lives of those who read them, the lives of those who write them. Readers and writers alike discover things they never knew about the world and about themselves.