Lists of books we reread and books we can't finish tell more about us than about the relative worth of the books themselves.

A couple of years I taught in graduate programs at NYU and Columbia, in the early eighties.

If you dedicate your attention to discipline in your life you become smarter while you are writing than while you are hanging out with your pals or in any other line of work.

John Brown first swam into my vision in the 1960s when I was a political activist in the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement at Chapel Hill, where I went to university.

Like Neanderthals, men prefer to hunt alone or, if in a pack, at the head of it. Women, whether in the field or in a campfire, are collaborative, and when they hunt...they work together.

Loyalty is weird, it kicks in when you dont expect it and the people who deserve loyalty least seem to get it the most.

For almost anyone who chooses to be a writer, since so very few writers are able to learn a living from their work that is equivalent to the living earned by the average dentist or accountant.

Chimpanzees are endangered. Severely.

Let the truth take care of itself, I decided. It's done all right on its own so far.

The best thing about writing programs is that it rationalized the apprenticeship of a writer.

Storytelling is an ancient and honorable act. An essential role to play in the community or tribe. It's one that I embrace wholeheartedly and have been fortunate enough to be rewarded for.

I don’t think it's weak to admit you made a mistake. That takes strength, if you ask me.

Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast,

[ Gil Cates] said, "You've got a point of view with your magic. There's this comedy to it, there's drama. You're telling stories with magic."

An invention that is quickly accepted will turn out to be a rather trivial alteration of something that has already existed.

I can't bear fishing. I think people look like fools sitting watching a line hour after hour-or else throwing and throwing, and catching nothing.

It's a tough world out there and all the guys are fighting hard and the competition is really tough.

You know, you want everything you do, obviously, to be a success critically and commercially. But what you find out as you go along is that everything won't.

I may indeed very well happen to contradict myself; but truth, as Demades said, I do not contradict.

It's always a thrilling risk to say exactly what you mean, to express exactly what you see.

If you could ever do a project that really has magic in it, and justifiable magic, you should do it.