Editors and their authors seldom form deep friendships for the same reason that psychiatrists and their patients keep their distance: The relationship requires candor that mixes poorly with intimacy.

Bookstores will not disappear but will exploit digital technologies to increase their virtual and physical inventories, and perhaps become publishers themselves.

By the mid 1970s, the great downtown bookstores had begun to disappear as their customers migrated from city to suburb where population density was too thin to support major backlist retailers.

What thou art that thou art.

I don't know who the hell Paul Lynde is, or why he's funny, and I prefer it to be a mystery to me.

I'm not good at watching stuff that I'm in at all. I should stop. I shouldn't watch something for the first time with a room full of people at Sundance. It's not a good idea.

Transmitting one's flaws [through procreation] to someone else is a crime. I could never consent to give life to someone who would inherent my ailments.

There are alternate explanations for everything.

One kills a man, one is an assassin; one kills millions, one is a conqueror; one kills everybody, one is a god.

When you're cornered, there are two things you can do: move or fight.

I don't profess to be a healer, a minister, a priest. I feel as an entertainer I can do more good for the world than I would if I were a soapbox orator or a self-made politician.

We cannot keep ourselves shut up in parishes, in our communities, when so many people are waiting for the Gospel!

Know something about something. Don’t just present your wonderful self to the world. Constantly amass knowledge and offer it around.