To be original is to discover the commonplace of a thousand years--to face at first the sneer that no one would have thought of it, and at last the indifference because any one would.

America is a tune. It must be sung together.

Turning the other cheek is a kind of moral jiu-jitsu.

New York is the capital, the national headquarters of homelessness.... No one feels he belongs here.

I have seen that Man moves over with each new generation into a bigger body, more awful, more reverent and more free than he has had before.

What was invented two thousand years ago was the spirit of Christianity.

The great man is the man who can get himself made and who will get himself made out of anything he finds at hand.

Christmas it too large to be tucked away in the toe of a child's stocking.

We may have hell if we have war, and we may have hell if we have peace. But if we have no vision for what we do, we have hell anyway.

Crowds speak in heroes.

No man living in a world as interesting as this ever writes a book if he can help it.

There is nothing like passion. The fire that burns in our heart.

The mentally ill frighten and embarrass us. And so we marginalize the people who most need our acceptance. What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, more unashamed conversation.

Books are the carriers of civilization... Books are humanity in print.

Impeachment is not a remedy for private wrongs; its a method of removing someone whose continued presence in office would cause grave danger to the nation.

Normally when I'm sent a script I'll read it through to see how it hangs as a story and then I'll go back and read it through again and look at the character.

It's hard to build community around mediocre and mundane writing.

After one year in the Texas League, the American League bought the rights to my contract. They optioned me back to the Texas League for the 1970 season.

To lose one’s name is the beginning of forgetting.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Big Night and The Impostors are both things that I wrote.