A writer who is afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.

Live in your imagination, not in your past.

He sought an adventure but didn't find one. He was inexperienced and besides he didn't have too much imagination.

The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.

There is no bad whiskey. There are only some whiskeys that aren't as good as others.

The main hallway of the Sternwood place was two stories high. Over the entrance doors, which would have let in a troop of Indian elephants, there was a broad stained-glass panel showing a knight in dark armor rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didn’t have any clothes on but some very long and convenient hair. The knight had pushed the vizor of his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling with the knots on the ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. I stood there and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him. He didn’t seem to be really trying.