I developed the habit of writing novels behind a closed door, or at my uncle's, on the dining table.

Then about 1951 I began writing again, painfully, a novel I called in the beginning A Life Sentence on Earth, but which developed into The Tree of Man.

I think it is impossible to explain faith. It is like trying to explain air, which one cannot do by dividing it into its component parts and labeling them scientifically. It must be breathed to be understood.

Probably induced by the asthma, I started reading and writing early on, my literary efforts from the age of about nine running chiefly to poetry and plays.

As a result of the asthma I was sent to school in the country, and only visited Sydney for brief, violently asthmatic sojourns on my way to a house we owned in the Blue Mountains.

I developed the habit of writing novels behind a closed door, or at my uncle's, on the dining table.

In fact I enjoyed every minute of my life at King's, especially the discovery of French and German literature.

In spite of holidays when I was free to visit London theatres and explore the countryside, I spent four very miserable years as a colonial at an English school.

My father and mother were second cousins, though they did not meet till shortly before their marriage.

Even if a university should turn out to be another version of a school, I had decided I could lose myself afterwards as an anonymous particle of the London I already loved.

I left for New York expecting to repeat my success, only to be turned down by almost every publisher in that city, till the Viking Press, my American publishers of a lifetime, thought of taking me on.

When I was rising eighteen I persuaded my parents to let me return to Australia and at least see whether I could adapt myself to life on the land before going up to Cambridge.

I continued writing the bad plays which fortunately nobody would produce, just as no one did me the unkindness of publishing my early novels.

Australians will never acquire a national identity until individual Australians acquire identities of their own.

Perhaps true knowledge only comes of death by torture in the country of the mind.

They have not always elected the best leaders, particularly after a long period in which they have not used this facility of free election. You tend to lose the habit.

In the past 3-4 years I've developed a habit of keeping numerous small cassette recorders in my house and in a bag with me so that I'm able to commit to tape memory song ideas on a constant basis.

Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.

I'm a creature of habit. I go to restaurants all the time and stuff.

Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have.

Men even contract the dirty, filthy habit of chewing tobacco, and when the habit gets a good hold upon them they are never satisfied except when they have a wad of the stuff in their mouth. So with drinking. It is largely a habit.

When you do the wrong thing, knowing it is wrong, you do so because you haven't developed the habit of effectively controlling or neutralizing strong inner urges that tempt you, or because you have established the wrong habit and don't know how to eliminate them effectively.

Habit is a great deadener.

Make it a habit to tell people thank you. To express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you'll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life, and you'll find that you have more of it.

Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.

The accent got lost somewhere along the way. I'm a little embarrassed about it. When I arrived in LA I assumed I'd be able to put on the American accent. It proved difficult so I had six months working with a dialect coach and it's become a habit.

Professors simply can't discuss a thing. Habit compels them to deliver a lecture.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive.

No habit or quality is more easily acquired than hypocrisy, nor any thing sooner learned than to deny the sentiments of our hearts and the principle we act from: but the seeds of every passion are innate to us, and nobody comes into the world without them.

When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.

My writing has to support more than my research habit, but I love to curl up with a book about some dusty corner of history.

The secret of a leader lies in the tests he has faced over the whole course of his life and the habit of action he develops in meeting those tests.

I applaud the American Cancer Society for all they do to eradicate smoking. Their local, state and national efforts help to discourage young people from taking up this deadly habit and the resources they provide have helped numerous smokers quit.

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.

Get the habit of analysis - analysis will in time enable synthesis to become your habit of mind.

Life never becomes a habit to me. It's always a marvel.

My habit of glorifying things far away in space and time, also contributed to my social isolation.

Education is the methodical creation of the habit of thinking.

Nothing else so destroys the power to stand alone as the habit of leaning upon others. If you lean, you will never be strong or original. Stand alone or bury your ambition to be somebody in the world.

Winning is a habit.

Powerful indeed is the empire of habit.

At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure.

After I hit a home run I had a habit of running the bases with my head down. I figured the pitcher already felt bad enough without me showing him up rounding the bases.

The worst mistake of first contact, made throughout history by individuals on both sides of every new encounter, has been the unfortunate habit of making assumptions. It often proved fatal.

Failure is only postponed success as long as courage 'coaches' ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory.

I am a smoker, I'm ashamed to say. I had given it up for many years, then picked it up again. It's a horrible habit. I struggle with myself all the time. And I love to smoke.

Yet otters have not been hunters in water long enough for the habit to become an instinct.

If success is a habit, it is a hard one to acquire.