To feed your Muse, then, you should always have been hungry about life since you were a child. If not, it is a little late to start.

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.

Looking back over a lifetime, you see that love was the answer to everything.

Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.

Sometimes you just have to jump out the window and grow wings on the way down.

I know you've heard it a thousand times before. But it's true - hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don't love something, then don't do it.

Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.

When had my sister's words become so barbed and poisoned? Grief had sharpened her tongue to a fine point.

Are we meant to be pilgrims of the depths?

They should be going to sleep, but good company is the enemy of sleep.

A hero cannot be a hero unless in a heroic world.

I'm not sure I'll ever be famous by anyone's definition. I can only hope to be allowed by the audience to continue my life's work.

Instead of dedicating your life to actualize a concept of what you should be like, actualize yourself.

But I'm tone deaf - window-shattering tone deaf. I can't sing for the life of me. I can't sing or dance, so no remake of 'Grease' for me!

I couldn't have built the great companies I've built if I didn't have a strong temperament. And she's got a weak temperament. She [Hillary Clinton ] is a weak person.

It's easy to create something that has a lot of luster, but it's very hard to make something that has a lot of depth.

To feel ambition and to act upon it is to embrace the unique calling of our souls.