mindset Quotes

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.

Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.

However my parents - both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing quirk that would never pay a mortgage or secure a pension.

No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility.

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

On the subject of literary genres, I've always felt that my response to poetry is inadequate. I'd love to be the kind of person that drifts off into the garden with a slim volume of Elizabethan verse or a sheaf of haikus, but my passion is story.

Every now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me, but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.

To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.

We're a phenomenally snobby society, and it's such a rich seam. The middle class is so funny: it's the class I know best, and it's the class where you find the most pretension, so that's what makes the middle classes so funny.

The fame thing is interesting because I never wanted to be famous, and I never dreamt I would be famous.