For a long time I thought I was a poet, but that's a high title to claim.

What I do say is that I can write verse, and that the writing of verse in strict form is the best possible training for writing good prose.

That's the duty of the old, to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.

I have maintained a passionate interest in education, which leads me occasionally to make foolish and ill-considered remarks alleging that not everything is well in our schools.

We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.

What I couldn't help noticing was that I learned more about the novel in a morning by trying to write a page of one than I'd learned in seven years or so of trying to write criticism.

Being in love was like China: you knew it was there, and no doubt it was very interesting, and some people went there, but I never would. I'd spend all my life without ever going to China, but it wouldn't matter, because there was all the rest of the world to visit.

And before I'd got to the end of the first paragraph, I'd come up slap bang against a fundamental problem that still troubles me today whenever I begin a story, and it's this: where am I telling it from?

I had passed through the entire British education system studying literature, culminating in three years of reading English at Oxford, and they'd never told me about something as basic as the importance of point of view in fiction!

For that reason you can't write with music playing, and anyone who says he can is either writing badly, or not listening to the music, or lying. You need to hear what you're writing, and for that you need silence.

True education flowers at the point when delight falls in love with responsibility.

Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature.

For a long time I thought I was a poet, but that's a high title to claim.

One curious thing about growing up is that you don't only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents' and grandparents' lives come to you.

Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain.

If you can't think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway. If you can think of lots more when you've finished the three pages, don't write it; it'll be that much easier to get going next day.

My only real claim to anyone's attention lies in my writing.

Everything has a meaning, if only we could read it.

Adam and Eve are like imaginary numbers, like the square root of minus one... If you include it in your equation, you can calculate all manners of things, which cannot be imagined without it.

You'll drift apart, it's true, but you'll be out in the open, part of everything alive again.

Being a practiced liar doesnt mean you have a powerful imagination. Many good liars have no imagination at all its that which gives their lies such wide eyed conviction.

All good things pass away.

People are too complicated to have simple labels.

A lot of modernism does seem to come out of a fear of being thought an ordinary storyteller. So they tell it backwards and they tell it in the present tense and they cut loose the pages and shuffle them around - all that kind of stuff.

After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.

There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children's book.

Men and women are moved by tides much fiercer than you can imagine, and they sweep us all up into the current.

Great success in examinations does naturally not as a rule go with originality of thought.

I had a wonderful time with the Stones but after 31 years, I thought it was time to move on.

I've always thought John Travolta is one of the greatest movie stars Hollywood has ever produced.

I never not wanted to be a singer. Since I was 3, I knew this was what I wanted to do. Well, I can't say I wanted to do it, but I fantasized and thought about it all the time. I never thought it would actually happen.

I wish I knew at 14 not to put much thought into what other people my age said to me, cause we were all looking for the answers. So I wish I knew that other people really don't know any more than you do!

Disney had such a hold on the mind of America-they were Adolf Hitler. The whole country thought Disney was some sort of god and that animation was some sort of pure thing for children.

I think that the quality of all bands is steadily improving and it is a pleasant thought to me that perhaps the efforts of Sousa's Band have quickened that interest and improved that quality.

The reason it has relevance is because I, as a popular Arab personality - the Arab people like me and respect me - thought it was time for me to make an ever so tiny statement about what I thought about this whole thing.

We thought it would be fun to try to design a show that would work well internationally and so that' s what we're intending to do with Fraggle Rock, and we are indeed now selling it around the world.

I got confused. I thought it was a K.Y. scare, so I bought 2000 jars of personal lubricant. I still have some.

I knew that my staying up would not change the election result if I were defeated, while if elected I had a hard day ahead of me. So I thought a night's rest was best in any event.

If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.

To me, a feminist belongs in the same category as a humanist or an advocate for human rights. I don't see why someone who's a feminist should be thought of differently.

I think it would have been a lot better for him to say, I did it and I'm sorry, McGwire was never one to show a lot of emotion on the field, not a player who sought attention and craved to be thought of as a nice guy.

I wouldn't have thought of myself as a person who could guide anybody and then it turned out that I can.

A thought often makes us hotter than a fire.

It was pretty extensive - we worked out 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 3 months, which I think is more than anybody in the Olympics. I thought well I don't need this, the girls need it, but it was a gift.

Not much to be perfectly honest! I thought The Phantom Menace was terrible, except for the Pod Race.

Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.

I always voted at my party's call, and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.

I've always thought that if Israel really wanted to solve the problem, they'd just start tomorrow and push right to the Jordan River, and anything in their way goes. They don't need America or someone else to help.

I thought in terms of the enthusiasm of doing it. I didn't think about whether I was ready.