Dedication to one's work in the world is the only possible sanctifica-tion. Religion in all its forms is dedication to Someone Else's work, not yours.

We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.

What we remember from childhood we remember forever - permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen.

After a certain number of years, our faces become our biographies.

To want to be what one can be is purpose in life.

If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage.

Is there a word more passionate than passion? Obsession, total immersion, the feeling that everything else doesn't matter.

To imagine the unimaginable is the highest use of the imagination

In saying what is obvious, never choose cunning. Yelling works better.

The power of language, it seems to me, is the only kind of power a writer is entitled to.

Traveling is seeing; it is the implicit that we travel by.

Every time a scientist publishes a good piece of work, she helps to maintain and raise the standards for what is true. We have to keep chipping away.

Instinct is untaught ability.

Remember the dignity of your womanhood. Do not appeal, do not beg, do not grovel. Take courage, join hands, stand besides us, fight with us.

I think the best thing about being dumb is that it makes magic a lot better. Where the hell did that rat come from? I dunno, but I'm calling the cops because he just cut that lady in half.

I think nobody can explain why some people win and why some people lose. It really doesn't always have to do much with talent. It has to do with how you deal with pressure.

It's only the losers named Dave that think having an unusual name is bad, and who cares what they think. They're named Dave.

Vagabonding is an attitude — a friendly interest in people, places, and things that makes a person an explorer in the truest, most vivid sense of the word.

You cannot blame everything on the enemy.

Currently a level of unemployment of 7% or more seems to be required to keep inflation from accelerating, a level quite unacceptable as a permanent situation.