“Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in m...” — Gilbert K. Chesterton Quote

“Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.”

“All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.”

“The present condition of fame is merely fashion.”

“Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are.”

“The ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations.”

“If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.”

“I have finally decided to write my book on the spiritual life. I mean to put down as simply as possible the sort of ascetical or mystical teaching that I have been living and preaching so long. I call it 'Le Milieu Divin,' but I am being careful to include nothing esoteric and the minimum of explicit philosophy.”

“I was in the South of France. I saw a Brownie on a school trip. She was holding up a book. It said on the front 'rough guide'. I thought: 'Yeah' she's not a looker.”

“It is more than a book, it is an institution which rules the Christian world.”

“My mother had a book club that would dissolve into opening wine.”

“Some of the most famous books are the least worth reading. Their fame was due to their having done something that needed to be doing in their day. The work is done and the virtue of the book has expired.”

“I live intimately with my characters before starting a book. I cut out pictures of them for my wall. I do time lines for each major character and a time line for the entire novel: What is going on in the world as my characters struggle with their problems?”