There were creative-writin g teachers long before there were creative-writin g courses, and they were called and continue to be called editors.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

There is a tragic flaw in our precious constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.

He didn't look like a soldier at all. He looked like a filthy flamingo.

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

Perhaps I am the turtle, able to live simply anywhere, even underwater for short periods, with my home on my back.

About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.

We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

A million coincidences had to occur in order for you to exist

Mediocrity will never do. You are capable of something better.

God willing and the creek don't rise

What you’re believing in the moment creates your suffering or your happiness.

Ive always found a cure for the blues is wandering into something unknown, and resting there, before coming back to whatever weight you were carrying.

With every one, the expectation of a misfortune constitutes a dreadful, punishment. Suffering then assumes the proportions of the unknown, which is the soul's infinite.

When I get up, the first thing I do is open up Gmail and check my personal email.

You have to be first, different, or great. If you're one of them, you may make it.

We are very near to greatness: one step and we are safe; can we not take the leap?

Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.