And like most middle-aged people who hear the clock ticking in their lives, I had come to resent a waste or theft of my time that was greater than any theft of my goods or money.

There's nothing like rejection to make you do an inventory of yourself.

I used to save all my rejection slips because I told myself, one day I'm going to autograph these and auction them. And then I lost the box.

If there is any human tragedy, there is only one, and it occurs when we forget who we are and remain silent while a stranger takes up residence inside our skin.

The system shaves the dice on the side of those with money and power, and anyone who believes otherwise deserves anything that happens to him.

You do it a day at a time. You write as well as you can, you put it in the mail, you leave it under submission, you never leave it at home.

How do you explain to yourself the casual manner in which you threw your life away?

...and I wonder if there is any way to adequately describe the folly that causes us to undo all the great gifts of both Earth and Heaven.

When you find the right people, you never let go. The people who count are the ones who are your friends in lean times. You have all the friends you want when things are going well.

That's one of the great advantages of age. You can say, I don't want to, I don't care, you can throw temper tantrums, and nobody minds.

When people make a contract with the devil and give him an air-conditioned office to work in, he doesn't go back home easily.

Being brave means that knowing when you fail, you won't fail forever.

One of the perils of life is to be asked a question which the wisest of them cannot answer. But a smile does the job.

If you want to stand out don't be different be outstanding.

It takes no genius to observe that a one-man band never gets very big

You are not reconciled to God if you are unreconciled with your fellow human beings.

The most important thing is that you have to have the visual effects working for you, instead of you working for the visual effects.

Down through the years certain fads of slang had come and gone, and their vestiges could be found in Janie's and Mabel's conversation, like mastodon bones in a swamp.

Remember how you made me crazy, remember how I made you scream.

You go through publicists because it's easy for a publicist to say to another publicist, 'No'.

Whether you want to uncover the secrets of the universe, or you just want to pursue a career in the 21st century, basic computer programming is an essential skill to learn