Human beings may be inconsistent, but human nature is true to itself

Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.

The first treasure California began to surrender after the Gold Rush as the oldest: her land.

We are all dying of life.

Spend as much time as you can with your mouth shut and your eyes and ears open.

Be persistent. Editors change; tastes change; editorial markets change. Too many beginning writers give up too easily.

Guilty she might be. But what human being was not? There were things in her past she needn't be ashamed of, things to be proud of; she wouldn't surrender so meekly to a condemning judgment.

No writer should minimize the factor that affects everyone, but is beyond control: luck.

Losing innocence. Remembering Heaven. That was the essence of Hell

The best that could be left behind by any man: children who had been brought up to behave responsibly and to believe in something beyond their own self gratification. (The Americans

He could never be anything more than what he was: the inheritor of weakness and unbridled emotion, a creature possessed by the past, and carrying its curse forever into the future--

You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren't. You take the action, and the insight follows: You don't think your way into becoming yourself.

I became a writer because I love to read, yet I never get to unless I'm reviewing a book or doing research.

The only place we can find a clear, unmistakable message is in the Word of God, which we call the Bible.

All music is important if it comes from the heart.

Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise. Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men.

I feel like, as women and men and people on the planet, you just have to do the best with what life gives you.

I have even written a book about Wine called The Grapes of Ralph.

I've always loved people that's been around for a long time, like old shoes.

The Playboy Calendar this year has some tiptop models. Any more top and they'd tip.

Creatures inveterately wrong in their inductions have a pathetic but praise-worthy tendency to die before reproducing their kind.