I think probably kindness is my number one attribute in a human being. I'll put it before any of the things like courage or bravery or generosity or anything else.

I regard each sentence as a little wheel... Now and again I try to put a really big one next to a very small one in such a way that the big one, turning slowly, will make the small one spin so fast that it hums. Very tricky, that.

Do you like vegetables?" Sophie asked, hoping to steer the conversation towards a slightly less dangerous kind of food. "You is trying to change the subject," the Giant said sternly. "We is having an interesting babblement about the taste of the human bean. The human bean is not a vegetable.

I doubt I would have written a line ... unless some minor tragedy had sort of twisted my mind out of the normal rut.

The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith hope and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul and that I am sure is why he does it.

The greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.

The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.