The monsters demand less of you as a writer because they're probably closer to who you are.

A good book ... leaves you wanting to reread the book. A great book compels you to reread your own soul.

A happy man has no past, while an unhappy man has nothing else.

There are words and words and none mean anything. And then one sentence means everything.

We have a very foolish notion in Western countries that progress delivers freedom. But progress doesn't necessarily bring moral virtue.

Writing is not lying, nor is it theft. It is a journey and search for transparency between one’s words and one’s soul.

Is it easier for a man to live his life again as a fish, than to accept the wonder of being human? So alone, so frightened, so wanting for what we are afraid to give tongue to.

What reality was ever made by realists?

When forging money, I had always salved my conscience by concluding that I was merely extending the lie of commerce.

Love is the scent of a sleeping back, death a slight draft of bad breath.

It's a sin for a writer to go looking for camels to put into his or her pages. I only want details that are the story.

My focus was on trying to figure out what God wanted be to do next. Their (his parents') focus was on what I was doing for God at the moment.

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.

Life is the game that must be played: This truth at least good friends we know So live and laugh nor be dismayed As one by one the phantoms go.

Some day you will be wheeled in for a heart bypass operation, and a surgeon will be the person who is now behind the counter when you renew your car registration at the department of motor vehicles.

Three courses open lie to wealth, to give, enjoy, or lose, Who shrinketh from the former two, perforce the third doth choose.

People are questioning if Ted Cruz can legally run for president because he was born in Canada. And the last thing we want to do is pave the way for a President Bieber.

Success never needs an excuse.

I'm 43 years old, and I know who I am, and I own my mistakes. They're my business. And when somebody who doesn't know me has an opinion, it's none of my business.

People like to tear you down. People are always going to take shots. You've just got to go for it.

Thoughts and ideas are not phantoms. They are real things. Although intangible and immaterial, they are factors in bringing about changes in the realm of tangible and material things.