Quotes from Arthur Hailey

Don't put down too many roots in terms of a domicile. I have lived in four countries and I think my life as a writer and our family's life have been enriched by this. I think a writer has to experience new environments. There is that adage: No man can really succeed if he doesn't move away from where he was born. I believe it is particularly true for the writer.

There was no surer way to lose the confidence of an audience, or a jury, than by letting them think faster than yourself, so that they became aware of what you were going to say before you said it.

there is nothing so tedious like the self-righteousness of a young man.

It was simply because, as a doctor, I don't believe a drug should be taken for anything that is just uncomfortable or self-limiting.

I learned a long time ago, though—you can't live other people's lives. We have to make our own decisions even if we're wrong.

So let me tell you, Nicky, there's nothing wrong with being scared to death. It can happen to the best. What counts is hanging on, somehow staying in control and doing what you know you should.

I don't think I really invented anybody. I have drawn on real life.

A surgeon gets $500 for taking out a tumor. A pathologist gets five dollars for examining it, making a diagnosis, recommending further treatment, and predicting the patient's future.

nastiness. Next day, fat and monstrous, it rumbled up the Mississippi Valley. Finally, over Illinois the storm unloaded, almost paralyzing the state with blizzard winds, freezing

A dog likes people who pat him on the head. That's because his thinking isn't complicated by knowledge and education

Sentimentality, he reflected, was an aid and comfort to the opponents of progress.

As long as you could feel your heart--wherever it seemed to be--that was the important thing. Libby had an instinct for essentials; at times he had the impression that her little hands reached up and gathered stars of truth.

But then I get to thinking of our mortality and human weakness, remembering there has never been power with purity—anywhere. If you want to be pure, you must stand alone. If you seek to do positive things, achieve something, leave the world a mite better than you found it, then you must choose power and throw some of your purity away. There's no other choice.

The trouble in our society is that everyone wants drugs that are free from risk and, as you and I both know, they don't exist and never will.

We are a strange people, Howden thought: an unpredictable admixture of mediocrity and genius, with now and then a flash of greatness.

roaring, on a hot, sunny day. But if any expressed surprise at the extent of preparation, Mel Bakersfeld would remind them that removing snow from the airport's operating area was equal to clearing seven hundred miles of highway. Like the Snow Desk

nodded, resisting a temptation to take over and direct the search himself for the missing truck and driver. Action would be a therapy. The cold of several days, and dampness with it, had

to the airport's duty fire chief. Danny summarized the situation so far. "And when we locate the truck, let's get an ambulance out there, and you may need an inhalator or heat, could be both. But better not roll until we know where exactly. We don't want to dig you guys out, too.

You never know how much you share with someone until the sharing ends.

When I began writing that I was able and did travel and met some fascinating people and also uncovered some history, which has not been discovered before.

I have been extraordinarily lucky. Anyone who pretends that some kind of luck isn't involved in his success is deluding himself.

No man can really succeed if he doesn't move away from where he was born. I believe it is particularly true for the writer.

Long afterward, many would remember those two days in the first week of October with vividness and anguish.