"He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife."

"It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared."

"It is useless to close the gates against ideas; they overlap them."

"Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off."

"A taste for irony has kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humor, for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself."

"The novel we sit down to write, and the one we end up writing may be very different, just as the Jesus we grasp and the Jesus who grasps us may also differ."

"There's an old saying about those who forget history. I don't remember it, but it's good."

"I think it better that in times like these a poet's mouth be silent, for in truth we have no gift to set a statesman right."

"The affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith will live as one of the prettiest love stories in all literature."

"Was ever book containing such vile matter so fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell in such a gorgeous palace!"