Lillian Smith

The human heart dares not stay away too long from that which hurt it most. There is a return journey to anguish that few of us are released from making.

When you stop learning, stop listening, stop looking and asking questions, always new questions, then it is time to die.

To believe in something not yet proved and to underwrite it with our lives: it is the only way we can leave the future open.

Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance.

A myth is a lie that conceals or reveals a truth. But if it reveals even a strand of history or truth, that's what gets my adrenaline going.

Although I write to entertain, and try to keep my work free of didacticism, I do have a rather passionate belief in our need to be connected to - and to learn from - history.