Never forget, son, when you represent Texas, always go first class.

I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.

Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today because if you enjoy it today, you can do it again tomorrow.

The really great writers are people like Emily Brontë who sit in a room and write out of their limited experience and unlimited imagination.

Scientists dream about doing great things. Engineers do them.

I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts. But I'm one of the world's great rewriters.

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.

If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home.

If your book doesn't keep you up nights when you are writing it, it won't keep anyone up nights reading it.

An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.

In all seriousness, it really should be difficult for me to be too strange. After all, a great family raised me.

I'm not much of a golfer, I don't have any friends and all I like to do is go home and be alone, and not worry about ways not to lose.

You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.

According to the latest poll in the Washington Post, 63 percent of Americans said that so far they approve of President Bush. Not surprisingly, the other 37 percent are English teachers.

Make things that carry with them the residue of where they have been.

The way my team are doing, we could get Wilt Chamberlain in a trade and find out that he's really two midgets Scotch-taped together.

I'm such a perfectionist. I always feel overpraised or whatever. In the abstract, I know I'm a good person, a good professional. But it's nice to be noticed a little bit, ain't it?

Having a child changes everything. All of a sudden you have so much to lose, so much to live for.

I was very influenced by movies; I was very influenced by a world that had a sense of dream.

I never, ever went out without my camera, even to buy bread.