It is very perplexing how an intrepid frontier people, who fought a wilderness, floods, tornadoes, and the Rockies, cower before criticism, which is regarded as a malignant tumor in the imagination.

Herman Melville was as separated from a civilized literature as the lost Atlantis was said to have been from the great peoples of the earth.

We cannot live, suffer or die for somebody else, for suffering is too precious to be shared.

When one realizes that his life is worthless he either commits suicide or travels.

Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue.

Recognize the cunning man not by the corpses he pays homage to but by the living writers he conspires against with the most shameful weapon, Silence, or the briefest review.

It takes a long time to understand nothing.

Writing is conscience, scruple, and the farming of our ancestors.

A strong foe is better than a weak friend.

Narcissus never wrote well nor was a friend.

There is a strange and mighty race of people called the Americans who are rapidly becoming the coldest in the world because of this cruel, man-eating idol, lucre.

Cosmic upheaval is not so moving as a little child pondering the death of a sparrow in the corner of a barn.

Social media is an ingredient, not an entree.

Well, you can't be trying to achieve success of any kind in this business without accepting that there's going to be a flip side to it.

I just love that spirit that makes people do things that they probably shouldn't.

The film world is a crazy place to be. You sit around all day waiting for the phone to ring. Are people talking about you or aren't they?

I like to be provocative.

Super-heroes were created to represent the best in all of us. We should aspire to match their nobility, not their ability to shoot big chrome guns.

But I'm only a cockeyed optimist.

I actually enjoy Instagram. I enjoy seeing what people who I have some connection to are doing around the globe.

Knowing that Nature never did betray the heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, through all the years of this our life, to lead from joy to joy.