Nature is at work. Character and destiny are her handiwork. She gives us love and hate, jealousy and reverence. All that is ours is the power to choose which impulse we shall follow.

The American landscape has no foreground and the American mind no background.

I don’t think there are many larger lessons to be found in sports.

A more significant phase should mean serious political dialogue.

See, I have no journalism in my background, so I wasn’t practised at research or writing non-fiction, nor at handling the truth in a journalistic way. Journalists know when to call a halt and write...

It is the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves you have a sense of humor.

He comes to this other world and he has to reinvent himself. Again, it felt natural, even though I’d been working really hard trying to come up with something.

Pain is real when you get other people to believe in it. If no one believes in it but you, your pain is madness or hysteria.

The desire to get married, which – I regret to say, I believe is basic and primal in women – is followed almost immediately by an equally basic and primal urge – which is to...

I try to be as honest about what I see and to speak rather than be silent, especially if it means I can save lives, or serve humanity.

It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and our air force has to have a bake-sale to buy a bomber.

You always succeed in producing a result.

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.

Abolition of a woman’s right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity: a form of rape by the State.

AIDS and malaria and TB are national security issues. A worldwide program to get a start on dealing with these issues would cost about $25 billion… It’s, what, a few months in Iraq.

If people ask me for the ingredients of success, I say one is talent, two is stubbornness or determination, and third is sheer luck. You have to have two out of the three. Any two...

To be in prison so long, it’s difficult to remember exactly what you did to get there.

In any really good subject, one has only to probe deep enough to come to tears.

It was Orwellian. I completely disappeared, and disappeared the same day. It was by early that evening when the Times story ran. That was an overreaction. All human beings under pressure behave poorly.

We will not change in matters of policy until such time as dialogue has begun.

I am busier now than I ever imagined I would be, but I feel blessed in that I have found what I am supposed to be doing with my life. It’s wonderful to tell stories...

Human beings will be happier – not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That’s my...

I’m such a devoted web user, myself, that it feels important to me to have a presence, to be a part of that whole collective enterprise.

We thus see that the Marxist law of value is not canceled by the data of the third volume, but is merely modified in a definite way.

Opposites may attract, but I wouldn’t put my money on a relationship of financial opposites.

You can make a new friend but you can’t make an old one.

To achieve the impossible; it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought.

We will act consistently with our view of who we truly are, whether that view is accurate or not.

Teamwork is so important that it is virtually impossible for you to reach the heights of your capabilities or make the money that you want without becoming very good at it.

The illiterate of the future are not those that cannot read or write. They are those that can not learn, unlearn, relearn.

A decision is what a man makes when he can’t find anybody to serve on a committee.

No government is here forever. And there are other forces – the most potent force in our society, in fact, big business – doing good for the environment.

The same tools that make any writer good, plus a cheerful willingness to suspend belief.

There was never sufficient evidence presented at my trial to support a finding of intent to kill.

And then ESPN fired me. I did not think that was a fitting punishment.

Periods of wholesome laziness, after days of energetic effort, will wonderfully tone up the mind and body.

I always figure I can have the Midwest one way or the other. Because it’s my background, it ought to be a voice that comes easily.

I work full-time in a used bookstore. I get up. I drink a cup of coffee. I think, The last thing I want to do is write. Then I go to the computer and write.

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

My original inspiration was my mom: a few years after the death of my dad, she started dating one my teachers!

Once, I got an idea for a short story during a Halloween concert while watching someone play the bones during the performance of Dance Macabre.

The book is your book. You have been responsible for every single thing on every page, every comma, every syllable is your work.

We will not bend or fail until the blood of every last Jew from the youngest child to the oldest elder is spilt to redeem our land!

It is not what we get. But who we become, what we contribute… that gives meaning to our lives.

You have to put in many, many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile.

We used to hold those secret meetings at her house.

Take air quality in the United States today: It’s about 30 percent better than it was 25 years ago, even though there are now more people driving more cars.

Doing a work for hire is not necessarily bad, whether it’s an encyclopedia article or a tie-in novel. It’s just that you get no royalties.

He who doesn’t consider himself is seldom considerate of others.

A New York divorce is in itself a diploma of virtue.