“To believe, it seemed, one had to want to believe.”

Source: Shades of Grey

Source: Lincoln's Dreams (1987), Chapter 4 (pp. 57-58)

Source: Gone Girl

"Why Liberty?”, in the Chicago Tribune (30 January 1927)
1920s
Context: I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman’s club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.

"Teacher" to Johnny
The Children's Story (1982)

On his facial scars which were the result of a childhood bout with Lupus, as quoted in "Seal: Still Crazy After All These Years" by Fiona Sturges in The Independent (11 October 2003)
Context: I've heard everything —that they were the result of ancient ritual induction into childhood that involved wrestling a wild boar, that I was viciously attacked by a gang. Someone even wrote that I was abducted by aliens who left me with a mark. You know, I really don't care. People can believe whatever they want to believe.

Progress update on A Dance with Dragons via his website (2008)