Don’t start an argument with somebody who has a microphone when you don’t. They’ll make you look like chopped liver.

And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock tick tock and one day we no longer let time serve...

The ability to dream is all I have to give. That is my responsibility; that is my burden. And even I grow tired.

Entertain, yes. That goes without saying. But a good writer does that automatically, it’s built into the machine. Telling a thumpingly good, mesmerizing story is what one does without question. But beyond that, any writer...

Thus, from admiration of one wise and innocent child, and from a misheard remark, the process that not even Aristotle could codify was triggered. Where do you get your ideas? I purposely mishear things.

If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you.

When you’re all alone out there, on the end of the typewriter, with each new story a new appraisal by the world of whether you can still get it up or not, arrogance and self-esteem...

Writing a novel is like going a great distance to take a small shit.

To see an almost certain horrible death–you know how crowds all sit at the edge of their seats, /praying/ subconsciously for a spectacular accident–and then to be whisked away from it so suddenly–brought to the...

You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.

Jelly beans! Millions and billions of purples and yellows and greens and licorice and grape and raspberry and mint and round and smooth and crunchy outside and soft-mealy inside and sugary and bouncing jouncing tumbling...

Who wants a library full of books you’ve already read?

The mistake we all make is in assuming anybody remembers anydamnthing from one day to the next. If that were true, we’d stop getting involved with approximately the same kind of wrong lover each time,...

Posing the question: does the god of love use underarm deodorant, vaginal spray and fluoride toothpaste?

The passion for revenge should never blind you to the pragmatics of the situation. There are some people who are so blighted by their past, so warped by experience and the pull of that silken...

The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity.

I can’t picture in my mind three hundred and sixty thousand dollars… When I think of it, all I can see in my mind is a big nickel.

Did you have one of those days today, like a nail in the foot? Did the pterodactyl corpse dropped by the ghost of your mother from the spectral Hindenburg forever circling the Earth come smashing...

I know that pain is the most important thing in the universes. Greater than survival, greater than love, greater even than the beauty it brings about. For without pain, there can be no pleasure. Without...

Because the chief commodity a writer has to sell is his courage. And if he has none, he is more than a coward. He is a sellout and a fink and a heretic, because writing...

It is not merely enough to love literature if one wishes to spend one’s life as a writer. It is a dangerous undertaking on the most primitive level. For, it seems to me, the act...

Uh, excuse me, sir, I, uh, don’t known how to uh, to uh, tell you this, but you were three minutes late. The schedule is a little, uh, bit off.”He grinned sheepishly.”That’s ridiculous!” murmured the...

The only thing worth writing about is people. People. Human beings. Men and women whose individuality must be created, line by line, insight by insight. If you do not do it, the story is a...