People cannot endure inexplicable worthlessness

My purpose is to entertain myself first and other people secondly.

Night and gin and music-the right setting for peeling off the thin clinging layers of bullshit and finding one's way down closer to the essential self.

You have to start knowing yourself so well that you begin to know other people. A piece of us is in every person we can ever meet.

If the cards are stacked against you, reshuffle the deck.

A nonreader is somebody standing there in a blindfold.

The only thing in the world worth a damn is the strange, touching, pathetic, awesome nobility of the individual human spirit.

Friendships, like marriages, are dependent on avoiding the unforgivable.

A man with a credit card is in hock to his own image of himself.

I want story, wit, music, wryness, color, and a sense of reality in what I read, and I try to get it in what I write.

Being an adult means accepting those situations where no action is possible.

The best thing I’ve learned, and still believe, is that I don’t have to be perfect to start, I have to start... so I can begin learning and growing.

Watching a good actor is the best way to learn.

Never let your correspondence fall behind.

I never give up. Doesn't matter what the score is.

Exposing any subject that is unpleasant or controversial means risking judgment and making some people feel uncomfortable.

The important thing, once you have enough to eat and a nice house, is what you can do for others, what you can contribute to the enterprise as a whole.

Precisely this is godliness--that there are gods, but no God.

I was touched by the magic of music. My way to communicate was through my guitar and music.

(She grabbed him for a bear hug.) Stop sexually harassing me, Mom. (Nick)

A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience!