You either have an imaginative mind or you don't. All of my writing is God-given. I don't write my stories - they write themselves.

When rivers flooded, when fire fell from the sky, what a fine place the library was, the many rooms, the books. With luck, no one found you. How could they!--when you were off to Tanganyika in '98, Cairo in 1812, Florence in 1492!?

Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.

Most of us can't rush around, talk to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven't time, money or that many friends. The things you're looking for... are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book.

Man has always been half-monster, half-dreamer.

We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of on good rain and black loam.

The most dangerous thing you can do is know who you are.