When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away.

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.

Freedom does that to people, he realizes. Once you've tasted it, ou never want to let go.

It was all about survival. That's all it had ever been about.

I like stylish men although I'm someone who sees a man who's not dressed right and think what I could do with him to make him cute. I'm a typical Jewish woman like that.

I just don't want to be hampered by my own limitations.

The fulness of the godhead dwelt in every blade of grass.

Generally in my films like Hearts of Darkness or Picture This, I try not to make myself a presence in the film.

I could peel you like a pear and god himself would see the justice in it.

Without the local library in my neighborhood, I don’t think I would have grown up to be a writer or a teacher.

‎I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to stay right here and cause all kinds of trouble.

Ambrose Phillips . . . who had the honor of bringing into fashion a species of composition which has been called, after his name, Namby Pamby.