If a pig goes upon the threshing-floor, or a field, or a garden, and the owner of the meadow, or the field, or the garden smites it so that it die, he shall give it back to its owner; but if he does not give it back, he becomes a thief.

If you did not in your own mind distinguish between useful and erroneous information, then you were not learning at all, you were merely replacing ignorance with false belief, which was no improvement.

You're a monster. Thanks. Does this mean I get a raise? No, just a medal. The budget isn't inexhaustable.

Anything can become a children's book if you give it to a child...Children are actually the best (and worst) audience for literature because they have no patience with pretence.

My favourite all-time work of fiction: Lord of the Rings. My favourite all-time nonfiction book: Guns, Germs, and Steel. Ask me again next week, you'll get a different answer.

I don't hate you, I love you, you're part of myself, you're my heart and when you go it's my heart torn out and carried away--

Perhaps every writer who thoroughly creates a fictional world will inevitably create a mirror of his own time and yet also create a world that no one else but him has ever visited.