And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too.

I’ve had moments when I’ve thought about somebody, picked up the phone to call them and they are on the line already, and I think that maybe there’s some vibration, some connection.

If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It’s a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting.

I don’t write letters anymore.

Better understated than overstated. Let people be surprised that it was more than you promised and easier than you said.

If I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn’t have been worth the Nobel Prize.

The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

It’s a rather rude gesture, but at least it’s clear what you mean.

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.

I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire.

I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I’d written, I don’t want to leave that behind.

It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are relatives of ours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even than Dwarves. Of old they spoke the languages of Men, after their own fashion, and liked and disliked much the same things as Men did. But what exactly our relationship is can no longer be discovered.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

It’s sometimes comical to hear the younger generation ask their peers to repeat themselves.

The funny thing is that I feel close to all my characters. Deep, deep inside them all.

Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything – to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby?

Words are more powerful than some noises. Noises won’t last long. Lyrics are so important, and people don’t realise that.

When I would hear the rabbi tell about some miracle such as a bush whose leaves were shaking but there wasn’t any wind, I would try to fit the miracle into the real world and explain it in terms of natural phenomena.

We grow older, but we do not change. We become more sophisticated, but at bottom we continue to resemble our young selves, eager to listen to the next story and the next, and the next.

I think one of the basic reasons men make good friends is that they can make up their minds quickly.

I actually started off majoring in computer science, but I knew right away I wasn’t going to stay with it. It was because I had this one professor who was the loneliest, saddest man I’ve ever known. He was a programmer, and I knew that I didn’t want to do whatever he did. So after that, I switched to Communications.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

I think the 24-hour news cycle has helped exaggerate the differences between the parties. You can always find someone on TV somewhere carping about something. That didn’t happen 20 years ago.

I seem to turn out stories that violate the discipline of the short story form and don’t obey the rules of progression for novels. I don’t think about a particular form: I think more about fiction, let’s say a chunk of fiction.

I can express myself.

I do not, in fact, use many puns. Certainly there are far fewer than people believe. But I suspect the ones I do occasionally use tend to hang around in people’s memories for a while.

All knowledge which ends in words will die as quickly as it came to life, with the exception of the written word: which is its mechanical part.

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.

We think when God speaks to us, there’s going to be a boom out of Heaven or we’re going to get some chill bumps, but I really believe God’s talking to us all the time. He’s talking to us right in here. I call it our heart, our conscience, but it’s the Holy Spirit talking to us.

I went to see ‚Phantom of the Opera‘ with my grandma and my mom when I was very little. The stage, the voice, the music… Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has been a massive inspiration to me for some time – the storytelling, that deliciously somber undertone in his music.

It’s a fact that more people watch television and get their information that way than read books. I find new technology and new ways of communication very exciting and would like to do more in this field.

Naturally, my stories are about women – I’m a woman. I don’t know what the term is for men who write mostly about men. I’m not always sure what is meant by ‚feminist.‘ In the beginning, I used to say, ‚Well, of course I’m a feminist.‘ But if it means that I follow a kind of feminist theory, or know anything about it, then I’m not.

Diplomacy is the art of saying ‚Nice doggie‘ until you can find a rock.

If you do not understand a man you cannot crush him. And if you do understand him, very probably you will not.

When I tell a child something the first time, I’m nice. The 15th time, I start to get aggravated.

I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.

Poetry and lyrics are very similar. Making words bounce off a page.

The truest form of any form of revolutionary Left, whatever you want to call it, was Jack Kerouac, E.E. Cummings, & Ginsberg’s period. Excuse me, but that’s where it was at.

Films and television and even comic books are churning out vast quantities of fictional narratives, and the public continues to swallow them up with great passion. That is because human beings need stories.

I intend to inspire people with my story: motivate young people that grew up like myself, or even not like myself. Just, you know, go through the human experience.

Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated.

Each day we understand better what the Indians say, and they us, so that very often we are intelligible to each other.

To the audience, it’s like I’m changing the subject every five seconds, but to me, my show’s almost like a 90-minute song that I know exactly. I wrote every note, and I know exactly where everything is.

It’s about the stories. If I write 14 stories that I love, then the next step is to get the environment of music around it to best envelop the story, and all kinds of sonic goodness – sonic goodies.

I just think you ought to talk straight with your people.

Digital technology allows us a much larger scope to tell stories that were pretty much the grounds of the literary media.

Fantasy is uni-age. You can start it in the creche, and it follows you to death.

Everybody, to some extent, manipulates. Even children learn to cry when they want something. There are all kinds of subtle things we do to get others to follow our lead, not bother us, and so on.

When we launched a new company, I reviewed the ads and marketing materials and asked those presenting the campaign to read everything aloud to test the phrasing and concept. If I could grasp it quickly, then it passed with muster. We would get our message across only if it was understandable at first glance.

I write all my sermons.

I’m actually a very honest person, and sometimes I end up like, ‚Man, I said too much.‘ It’s hard for me not to tell the truth when you ask me.

Without tact you can learn nothing.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

I used to tell my husband that, if he could make me ‚understand‘ something, it would be clear to all the other people in the country.

Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Put it this way: If I asked, ‚How’s business?‘ and you say, ‚Boomin‘ or ‚Amazing,‘ I already know the answer.

To be social is to be forgiving.

I would impress upon your minds the fact that if you want to do a man justice, you should believe what a man says himself rather than what people say he says.

People are generally proud of their food. A willingness to eat and drink with people without fear and prejudice… they open up to you in ways that somebody visiting who is driven by a story may not get.

Skype actually does get a fair bit of revenue.

I’m working on my life story. I’m not decided if it’s going to be a musical or a movie with music in it.