People were as they were, not not as he wished them to be.

...Do you see things in black and white, or are there shades of gray for you?" "I hope there's gray...Black and white make things easier, but only if you don't want to think.

Fiction has to be plausible. All history has to do is happen.

A horsefly can't do a horse much real damage, but it can drive it wild anyhow.

You can write better about a place you've seen for yourself. You don't have to have been there - I've sure written about places I've never seen - but it does help.

Many things are possible. Few things are certain.

I learned by reading an awful lot and by writing a half a million words of stuff nobody would do anything with except wrap old fish.

I'm a social caterpillar. I am not a social butterfly

I do first draft in longhand, which saves a lot of rewriting. I try to get a certain amount done each day. Don't always, but I try. Then I clean up in the rewrites.

People you don't like are pigheaded. Your friends are stubborn, or hold to their purpose.

You count snouts,” Straha said. “Whichever side can persuade most snouts to join it prevails. It does not have to be clever. It does not have to be wise. It only needs to be popular.

Leadership is about movement and growth.

As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know.

To a vampire, there is only selfishness.

By speaking in a competent and confident way, your message will sound more relevant and appropriate, reflecting you in a favorable light.

if beauty were time, you'd be eternity

All one really requires for putting anything over is enough energy and resistance to keep on plugging the idea. Someone will eventually fall.

Real happiness is something most people never know. What we experience in deep meditation, that ecstasy is beyond what human beings call happiness

The number of times I have fallen down is the number of times I have gotten up.

Don't worry about the war. It's all over but the shooting.

We need to cut these things that aren't constitutionally mandated, that are kind of on the periphery, the fluffery, like NPR and National Endowment for the Arts. Those are obvious.