Only fools and philosophers waste time on the unknowable.

[A] pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.

The only thing I want is something I can't have; and that is to know if, 100 years from now, people will still buy my books.

I have a strong moral sense - by my standards.

Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.

Measure your minds height by the shadow it casts.

Being broke is not a disgrace, it is only a catastrophe.

Every Sherlock Holmes story has at least one marvelous scene.

Sarcasm is not the rapier of wit its wielders seem to believe it to be, but merely a club: it may, by dint of brute force, occasionally raise bruises, but it never cuts or pierces.

The more you put in your brain, the more it will hold - if you have one.

I don't approve of open fires. You can't think, or talk or even make love in front of a fireplace. All you can do is stare at it.

When you live next to death ... you don't think about it anymore, you just try to encounter it as seldom as possible.

Paul's one thing was committing to forget about the past, to forge ahead into the future.

So here I was expecting at the very best a cordial welcome from the girls who were prepared to fight me to the death for someone I didn’t want. Instead I was embraced.

If confidence is a plant of slow growth, credit is one which matures much more slowly.

Racism is a moral catastrophe, most graphically seen in the prison industrial complex and targeted police surveillance in black and brown ghettos rendered invisible in public discourse.

I have to avoid things like 'World of Warcraft' or 'Minecraft', otherwise I'd never get any work done.

With no pretensions of art, Viva Las Vegas, the new Elvis Presley vehicle, is about as pleasant and unimportant as a Banana Split.

Netflix did it right and focused on all the things that have replaced the dumb, raw numbers of the Nielsen world - they embraced targeted marketing and 'brand' as a virtue higher than ratings.

Telling me I can do anything I want is like pulling the plug out of the bath and then telling the water it can go anywhere it wants. Try it, and see what happens.

Working as a showrunner has made it tougher to watch other shows and movies.