Sentiment is for those who don't know what to do next.

A desert is a place without expectation.

The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is.

A truly living human being cannot remain neutral.

The caged eagle become a metaphor for all forms of isolation, the ultimate in imprisonment. A zoo is prison.

Peace. The upland serenity of high altitude, the openness of grassland without indigenous bush or trees; the greening, yellowing or silver-browning that prevailed, according to season.

Writing is making sense of life.

Perhaps the best definition of progress would be the continuing efforts of men and women to narrow the gap between the convenience of the powers that be and the unwritten charter.

I have failed at many things, but I have never been afraid.

Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small area.

Time is change; we measure its passage by how much things alter.

I knew she was right. Of course she was right. Bex was always right. She knew me better than I knew myself. But then again, isn't that a best friend's job?

Even fools say something worthwhile now and again. Even a blind pig finds an acorn sometimes.

The best rules to form a young man, are, to talk little, to hear much, to reflect alone upon what has passed in company, to distrust one's own opinions, and value others that deserve it.

Well oddly enough, I liken the years at MGM, and I was there for about eight years, to doing stock, what we used to call repertory or stock, playing a whole bunch of different roles.

If I have a talent for making some fourth-grader who hates school and reading to hate it a little less, then I have to do the most with what I've been issued.

Your habits determine your outcomes.

You don't need a dead father to explain a character's sadness. And impressing yourself with wit/cleverness often feels like what it is - authorial intrusion.

Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as narratives - we are each of us unique.

I met the surgeon general - he offered me a cigarette.

Love ranges from just fascination to something almost spiritual. In the case with my wife Barbara it just keeps growing all the time.