“If a story is in you, it has to come out.”

Read, read read. Read everything.

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station….

Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it.

Unless you’re ashamed of yourself now and then, you’re not honest

An artist is a creature driven by demons. He don’t know why they choose him and he’s usually too busy to wonder why.

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.

The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself

A mule will labor ten years willingly and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once.

Men have been pacifists for every reason under the sun except to avoid danger and fighting.

Writing a first draft is like trying to build a house in a strong wind.

All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the base of our splendid failure to do the impossible.

No matter how young you are or how old you have got. Not for kudos and not for cash: your picture in the paper nor money in the back either. Just refuse to bear them.

They say that it is the practiced liar who can deceive. But so often the practiced and chronic liar deceives only himself; it is the man who all his life has been selfconvicted of veracity whose lies find quickest credence.

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed.

A man. All men. He will pass up a hundred chances to do good for one chance to meddle where meddling is not wanted. He will overlook and fail to see chances, opportunities, for riches and fame and welldoing, and even sometimes for evil. But he won’t fail to see a chance to meddle.

There is no such thing as bad whiskey. Some whiskeys just happen to be better than others. But a man shouldn’t fool with booze until he’s fifty; then he’s a damn fool if he doesn’t.