Katharine Lee Bates

Love planted a rose, and the world turned sweet.

It is the hour to rend thy chains, the blossom time of souls.

A taste for the best reading is not cultivated in Spanish girls, even where the treasures of that great Castilian literature are accessible to them.

I turned into a monk when my mother went to learn Buddhism in Burma. While she learnt at the monastery, I used to roam around with a begging bowl and ask for food.

You have to have really wide reading habits and pay attention to the news and just everything that's going on in the world: you need to. If you get this right, then the writing is a piece of cake.