Authors are sometimes like tomcats: They distrust all the other toms but they are kind to kittens

The germ of a story is a new and simple element introduced into an existing situation or mood.

Talent is what you possess; genius is what possesses you.

They tell you that you'll lose your mind when you grow older. What they don't tell you is that you won't miss it very much.

Put cotton in your ears and pebbles in your shoes. Pull on rubber gloves. Smear Vaseline over your glasses, and there you have it: instant old age.

It is the fear of being as dependent as a young child, while not being loved as a child is loved, but merely being kept alive against one's will.

Writing offers fairly large rewards to a few successful people, but the rewards come late, and most writers are failures.

Be kind and considerate with your criticism... It's just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book.

Any fiction should be a story. In any story there are three elements: persons, a situation, and the fact that in the end something has changed. If nothing has changed, it isn't a story.

Going back to Hemingway's work after several years is like going back to a brook where you had often fished and finding the woods as deep and cool as they used to be.

Age is not different from earlier life as long as you're sitting down

It's hard to explain how this works, and I admit that it's fairly implausible or untenable as a way of life, but that seems to be how I go about my days: peaceably in person, fiercely on paper.

When you make the right decision, it doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks.

Richard Clarke had plenty of opportunities to tell us, in the administration, that he thought the war on terrorism was moving in the wrong direction and he chose not to.

Anger is a tool for change when it challenges us to become more of an expert on the self and less of an expert on others.

I have a group of close personal friends that are all my world. My family is my world. And as long as those people are happy with me, then I'm happy with myself.

Floyd Paterson and other fighters, they just don't take part.They make a million dollars, they get a Rolls Royce and a nice home and a white wife and think, 'well, I made it'.

Our tears are what happens when it rains deep inside our hearts and we cannot hold the rain any longer.

Connect. Embrace. Liberate. Love somebody. Just one person. And then spread that to two. And as many as you can. You'll see the difference it makes.

The lack of carbohydrates can make you a little crazy.