"The main purpose of Social Security is to redistribute wealth, to make an increasingly large number of Americans dependent on government for their basic needs in their retirement years."

“Sitting and waiting for something to happen was the worst kind of torture.”

“[The imagination] . . . inspires an audacious mental habit. We are as elastic as the gas of gunpowder, and . . . a word dropped in conversation, sets free our fancy, and instantly our heads are bathed with galaxies, and our feet tread the floor of the Pit.”

“I feel like it's a good time to be a writer. I'm terminally optimistic. It seems like the publishing industry is in the middle of a big transition, and that the rules of the game are still sorting themselves out.”

Source : Source: therumpus.net

“Give thanks to God, who made necessary things simple, and complicated things unnecessary.”

Source : "A Calendar of Wisdom" by Leo Tolstoy, translated by P. Sekirin, 1997.

“I think any genuine leader today has to learn leadership the hard way-by doing it. That means embracing turbulence and crisis, not avoiding it. It means "flying through the thunderstorm." That's not to say that there are no basic principles to orient you to the challenge. Indeed, I describe some in the book. But there are no simple recipes. Until you have lived it, you don't really know how to do it. That's what I mean by "leadership the hard way."”

Source : "Why Leadership Is Like Flying Through a Thunderstorm: An Interview with Dov Frohman". Interiew with Robert Howard, www.leadershipthehardway.com.

“Plot is tremendously important to me: I can't stand books where nothing happens, and I can't imagine ever writing a novel without at least one murder.”

Source : "Guardian first book award shortlist: Ned Beauman". The Guardian Interview, www.theguardian.com. October 29, 2010.

“We live in an age in which the fundamental principles to which we subscribe - liberty, equality and justice for all - are encountering extraordinary challenges, ... But it is also an age in which we can join hands with others who hold to those principles and face similar challenges.”

“I used to sit home with my computer and write. After the Newbery, I probably spend more than half my time on the road.”