I want to keep meeting new people, enlarging my circle of friends. I have great friends now... really good people. But I'm always ready for what comes next

Pistachio nuts, the red ones, cure any problem.

When my father would yell at me, I told myself someday I'd use it in a book.

Good writing is remembering detail. Most people want to forget. Don't forget things that were painful or embarrassing or silly. Turn them into a story that tells the truth.

Normally, I name my characters after famous comedians.

My father was a very unhappy person, very sarcastic, and my mother was very nervous and worried about what people thought. They weren't monsters, but it wasn't a good childhood.

I'm very lucky. I'm very fortunate that my books have never gone out of print - none of them

We spend our whole lives recovering from high school.

I made the choice long ago to write about real life. And life is both serious and funny.

Sometimes it's easier to show than it is to tell

Mistakes are growth, and we learn not to do it again. But it doesn't make you a terrible person. That's important to me.

All dreams of empire end because day breaks in the hearts of the slaves used to build it.

The spirit of an artist's gifts can wake our own.

…there was no more that I could do to make myself look better in that moment than smile and be kind…

I'm a bit hyperactive as an actor, I like to keep moving.

A candid spirit is mightier than the most persistent dogmatism.

Let me feel your love one more time before I abandon it.

I care about the work I do. But I'm not going to say that money's not an issue.

A man's wealth is measured by what he doesn't need.

Through therapy and a lot of thinking and writing my memoirs, I've been able to use my life as a lesson.

Anyone who puts a small gloss on a fundamental technology, calls it proprietary, and then tries to keep others from building on it, is a thief.