I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.

— Oscar Wilde

Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.

— Earnest Hemmingway

It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.

— Mark Twain

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”

— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

True friends stab you in the front.

— Oscar Wilde

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

— Douglas Adams

‘Classic.’ A book which people praise and don’t read.

— Mark Twain

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”

— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

God created war so that Americans would learn geography.

— Mark Twain

Half my life is an act of revision.

— John Irving

There’s no such thing as writer’s block. It was invented by people in California who couldn’t write.

— Terry Pratchett

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

— William Shakespeare

My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.

— Mark Twain