“She accused him of having grandiose ideas and sloppy habits, a fatal combination for a writer.” 

“I can promise you that women working together – linked, informed and educated – can bring peace and prosperity to this forsaken planet.” 

“Happiness is pure kitsch; we come into the world to suffer and learn.” 

“Writing is a constant exercise in longing.” 

“Writing is a process, a journey into memory and the soul.” 

“Write what should not be forgotten.” 

“The library is inhabited by spirits that come out of the pages at night.” 

Of all fatiguing, futile, empty trades, the worst, I suppose, is writing about writing.

Any subject can be made interesting, and therefore any subject can be made boring.

I am writing a book about the Crusades so dull that I can scarcely write it.

“Much learning does not teach understanding.” 

“Experience is a keen teacher; and long before you had mastered your A B C, or knew where the "white sails" of the Chesapeake were bound, you began, I see, to gauge the wretchedness of the slave, not by his hunger and want, not by his lashes and toil, but by the cruel and blighting death which gathers over his soul.” 

“Once you learn to read, you'll be forever free.” 

It took me 40 years to write my first book. When I was a child, I was encouraged to go to school. I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death.

I miss writing, creating, and working on bigger projects. YES to that means NO to any games of whack-a-mole.

“The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.” 

“The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.” 

“Philosophy is "an unusually stubborn attempt to think clearly.” 

“All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in our own mind.” 

“Education is the manifestation of perfection already existing in man.” 

“Books are infinite in number and time is short. The secret of knowledge is to take what is essential. Take that and try to live up to it.” 

“A fool may buy all the books in the world, and they will be in his library; but he will be able to read only those that he deserves to.” 

“She lives in the poetry she cannot write.” 

“Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”