I was giving up--being realistic, as people liked to say, meaning the same thing. Being realistic made me feel bitter.

Time, which is your enemy in almost everything in this life, is your friend in writing.

We are made to persist. that's how we find out who we are.

Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it.

One of the things that draws writers to writing is that they can get things right that they got wrong in real life by writing about them.

The beauty of a fragment is that it still supports the hope of brilliant completeness.

A piece of writing is a dangerous thing," he said. "It can change your life.

Real maturity is the ability to imagine the humanity of every person as fully as you believe in your own humanity.

Memory is funny. Once you hit a vein the problem is not how to remember but how to control the flow.

Everything has to be pulling weight in a short story for it to be really of the first order.

Most of us dont live lives that lend themselves to novelistic expression, because our lives are so fragmented.

Nothing is quite as depressing as depression.

Socrates' way of life is the consequence of his recognition that we can know what it is that we do not know about the most important things and that we are by nature obliged to seek that knowledge.

If I'm going to spend the whole night waiting for you guys to stop flirting and shoot each other, I want to at least be entertained.

When you are faced with prejudice, logic and justice are impotent. Still, we may have an obligation to argue directly into the face of the prejudice, even though there is no chance to win.

I'm always looking for opportunities, even when they're not offered to me. I will have no hesitation to pick up the phone and call a director or call a writer.

If my kid couldn't draw I'd make sure that my kitchen magnets didn't work.

The terrible newly imported American doctrine that everyone ought to do something.

Carrying a grudge is difficult work that brings nothing of value. Forgive, and be free.

The art of governing consists simply of being honest, exercising common sense, following principle, and doing what is right and just.

My stepfather stepped in where no man would've stepped in - six kids, five of them boys - and that's heroic.