I wanted to write something that would be a comedy in the sense of making people feel happier when they finish it than they did when began it.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

You may try but you can never imagine what it is to have a man’s form of genius in you, and to suffer the slavery of being a girl.

Death is the king of this world: ‘Tis his park where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain are music for his banquet.

Strategy number one is that I always, or almost always, have at least two or three different things that I’m writing at any one time.

We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment.

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

I wondered to what extent people remained the same as they’d been when very young; if one peeled back the layers of living one would come to the know child.

Also, I’ve already won all the awards.

In every parting there is an image of death.

The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose them. The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory.

He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.

I was always so relieved that anyone wants to publish anything I’ve written.

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion.

Hobbies are apt to run away with us, you know; it doesn’t do to be run away with. We must keep the reins.

The current total of countries in the world with First Amendments is one. You have guaranteed freedom of speech. Other countries don’t have that.

A place for everything, and everything in its place.

Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.

Universities are the cathedrals of the modern age. They shouldn’t have to justify their existence by utilitarian criteria.

American Gods is about 200,000 words long, and I’m sure there are words that are simply in there ’cause I like them. I know I couldn’t justify each and every one of them.

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.

Might, could, would – they are contemptible auxiliaries.

I’ll agonize over sentences. Mostly because you’re trying to create specific effects with sentences, and because there are a number of different voices in the book.

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of indifference.

I’m not denying that women are foolish: God almighty made ’em to match the men.

The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.

Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking.

I’m not denyin’ the women are foolish. God Almighty made ’em to match the men.

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

Walt Whitman, he who laid end to end words never seen in each other’s company before outside of a dictionary.

As far as I’m concerned, the entire reason for becoming a writer is not having to get up in the morning.

Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love.

Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.

You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.

I’m a fairly undisciplined writer.

It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.

That’s what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he’s wise.

Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma. Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive.

There’s a glorious sense of freedom in comedy, just allowing myself to tell jokes, allowing myself to interrupt myself and tell old African folk stories that I made up – or didn’t – and Jamaican...

It is easy to say how we love new friends, and what we think of them, but words can never trace out all the fibers that knit us to the old.

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.

Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.

We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord will be with thee. Prayer and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, will do anything.

Authors know that you should never really write a funny book because funny books do not get awards. Comic novels will not get awards.

All the learnin’ my father paid for was a bit o’ birch at one end and an alphabet at the other.

Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.