It sounds shameful, but on my best days I write only about three or four hours.

I can’t remember how many times I advised students to stop writing the sunny hours and write from where it hurts: No one wants to read polite. It puts them to sleep.

Tell a female she's thin and she's yours for life.

Publishers never tell writers anything. They're all crazy and they drive me crazy.

Deadlines just aren't real to me until I'm staring one in the face.

Of course I want the moon. And were you to offer it, I'd propose as a trade the stars in my eyes.

All of life and human relations have become so incomprehensibly complex that, when you think about it, it becomes terrifying and your heart stands still.

I've seen innovation come from something as simple as a resourceful multibillionaire who wanted to make even more money.

I'm always fighting to make the team anyway. I'm always preparing like I'm one of the bottom guys, trying to make the team.

A married man forms married habits and becomes dependent on marriage just as a sailor becomes dependent on the sea.

The best way to get kids reading more is to give them books that they'll gobble up - and that will make them ask for another.

Essays, entitled critical, are epistles addressed to the public, through which the mind of the recluse relieves itself of its impressions.

Anxiety and fear are cousins but not twins. Fear sees a threat. Anxiety imagines one.

Humor is the most honest of emotions. Applause for a speech can be insincere, but with humor, if the audience doesn't like it there's no faking it.