Worry about staying alive first. Then worry about how you're going to live.
My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.
A notorious inability to express emotions makes human beings the only animals capable of suicide.
Dreams reveal we never quite get 'over' anything: it's all still in there somewhere.
The fear of saying something stupid (which stupid people never have) has censored far more good ideas than bad ones.
Only by declaring a book completely finished can one start to see how much remains to be done on it.
What am I supposed to do here? What am I supposed to think?
Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering, or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then, put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations, and say continually: 'The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart has trusted in Him and I am helped. He is not only with me but in me and I in Him. '
Treat people the way they are and they will stay that way. Treat people the way they can become and they will become that way.
Think about the brain as the densest concentration of youness. It's the peak of the mountain, but not the whole mountain.
Usually halfway through a book I have a serious depression, so I go on safari on my ranch in South Africa, or fishing off my island in the Seychelles. When I come back and re-read it, I think: 'What was all that about, Smith? It's fine, just get on with it. '