The purpose of a writer is to keep civilisation from destroying itself.", September 14, 1958)

Without heroes, we are all plain people and don't know how far we can go.

There comes a time in a man's life when to get where he has to go - if there are no doors or windows he walks through a wall.

First drafts are for learning what your story is about.

Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.

Teach yourself to work in uncertainty.

Life is a tragedy full of joy.

The purpose of freedom is to create it for others.

The wild begins where you least expect it, one step off your normal course

We can't all be friends and relatives as the world is; most of us have to be strangers.

The whole history of baseball has the quality of mythology.

There are two futures, the future of desire and the future of fate, and man's reason has never learned to separate them.

Everything in this world depends upon will.

I'm not in the business of reading tea leaves. I don't have a crystal ball.

I would look a little silly playing Casanova now.

I always like worlds where you could be in several different time periods.

I write about violence as naturally as Jane Austen wrote about manners. Violence shapes and obsesses our society, and if we do not stop being violent we have no future.

Ridiculously - fortunately - my first job was with Dustin Hoffman. I had a little part in this movie called Tootsie. And he taught me how to watch dailies. That it was very important.

I avoid the media circus, keep my head down and try to keep growing and learning things.

Terrorism is actually a very expensive business.

Working people really amaze me. When you give them all the facts, they make the right decision every single time.