One day we will all cherish the memory of having blacksmiths on every corner.

You do not have to explain every single drop of water contained in a rain barrel. You have to explain one drop-H2O. The reader will get it.

Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk-away from any open flames-to remind yourself that if you don't write daily, you will get rusty.

There's a ton of truth in Flannery O'Connor's notion that "Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days."

I have to deal with seven ex-stray dogs, and one ex-stray cat. One dog is nearing nineteen years old. Before I go to teach, he likes for me to tell him bedtime stories.

Don't try to outguess what's going on in publishing, and write what you want to write.

Gilles Deleuze believed that every society needed a madman so we could feel better about ourselves. I do my best to fill that role.

I don't smoke because I like to do so, but because it makes me pay cigarette taxes, which helps build roads and water supplies.

Think about all the selfish non-smokers out there, driving around on asphalt, drinking water out of the tap, not even thinking about how smokers' taxes help pay for it all.

Some of my greatest successes in business are simply the result of taking huge, calculated risks.

Language is the expression of ideas by means of speech-sounds combined into words. Words are combined into sentences, this combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts.

And when I retired, trust me, not only did Nolan Ryan, but the entire Ryan family had withdrawals from baseball. And it was tough.

I'm still missing that little something.

The song can be a little bit more of the mystery and leave the whole thing open ended. But there's something really gratifying about saying exactly what you mean.

Any religious organization should be allowed to hire based on their religious preference- but not with federal dollars.

Here’s the thing, making out with a girl on camera … They’re beautiful and soft. I get why you guys are into it.

We open the halves of a miracle, and a clotting of acids brims into the starry divisions: creation's original juices, irreducible, changeless, alive: so the freshness lives on

Creating is no problem - problem solving is not creating.