I have a total responsibility to the reader. The reader has to trust me and never feel betrayed.

Black and white can show how something is. Color adds how it is, imbued with temperatures and humidities of experience.

A lot of education is like teaching marching; I try to make it more like dancing.

Everything that would begin to make somebody a good student would tend to make him or her a poor artist, and vice versa.

Matisse can make you hate your life for its comparatively insipid joys.

To me, the greatest artists are almost entirely non-verbal.

You could say that clinical depression is an incapacity to aesthetic response. It's like there's a constant agreement within ourselves, a kind of mutual understanding between ourselves and the world.

What I want to know from students, and I ask them right away, is, 'What do you want? I don't care what it is. I want to help you get it.

I can do pretty good work in various short forms, but anything over 1400 words, I'd be of no use. I like to say I'm a river navigator. I need to see the shore behind the shore.

I think being interested is really what being civilized is about. I mean, you have to be conscious of everything.

I find that the mask of the critic is to have distance.

For ages past the Genius of Literature and the Genius of Art have walked together hand in hand. For the Goddess of letters is blind, and only she of Art can lend her sight.

A real businessman value his partners like friends and his partnership like friendship.

It comes down to building your own world out here on the road. It's who you surround yourself with. My band and crew are really positive guys.

A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points. Perspective is worth 80 IQ points. Point of view is worth 80 IQ points

A YA heroine does not have to pick up a weapon nor wear men's clothing to be equal to her male counterparts.

Nobody has ever had crowds like Trump has had.

No performer should attempt to bite off red-hot iron unless he has a good set of teeth.

Being left-handed has its advantages in volleyball. Few people know enough about your spike and serve to give you advice.

Why is it that if you take advantage of a corporate tax break you're a smart businessman, but if you take advantage of something so you don't go hungry, you're a moocher?

I don't believe in God. ...I hope he doesn't hold that against me.