“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.”

“What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly — that is the first law of nature.”

“Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all.”

“Let us cultivate our garden.”

“It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.”

“The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.”

“Books are the mirrors of the soul.”

“Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners.”

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

“When I'm writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness.”

“You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

“You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”