“First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to re-form it….”

Those who write about life, reflect about life. you see in others who you are.

Children were strangers you loved because you could love. If they gave back love when they were grown you were ahead of the game.

The wild begins where you least expect it, one step off your normal course

… it’s possible to let love fly by like a cloud in a windy sky if one is too timid, or perhaps unable to believe he is entitled to good fortune.

Of course it would cost something, but he was an expert in cutting corners; and when there were no more corners left he would make circles rounder.

If you ever forget you are a Jew a goy will remind you.

I am somewhat of a meliorist. That is to say, I act as an optimist because I find I cannot act at all, as a pessimist.

(Clothes) cannot change a man’s nature. He’s either kind or he isn’t, with or without clothes.

If the stories come, you get them written, you’re on the right track. Eventually everyone learns his or her own best way. The real mystery to crack is you.

I sometimes confuse myself with the little I know.

As long as a man stays alive he can’t tell what chances will pop up next. But a dead man signs no checks.

We have in my country (Russia) a quotation: “It is impossible to make out of apology a fur coat.

First drafts are for learning what your story is about.

Writers who can’t invent stories often substitute style for narrative. They remind me of the painter who couldn’t paint people, so he painted chairs.

All men are Jews, though few men know it.

You can’t eat language but it eases thirst.

Every corporate security may be best viewed, in the first instance, as an ownership interest in, or a claim against, a specific business enterprise.

Start with local press first. Start with people you know. Don’t pitch every journalist.

A true philosopher is like an elephant; he never puts the second foot down until the first one is solidly in place.

I am sad that the LDK has chosen not to participate in that first meeting. They are unhappy about the current composition of the council.

The first duty of a leader is opti­mism. How does your sub­or­di­nate feel after meet­ing with you? Does he feel uplifted? If not, you are not a leader.

When you’re smart on crime, you start off by recognizing that both the victim, first of all, the victim, but also the person who did the crime are both human.

To me the thing with ‘Grease’ was that it was the first movie that as a kid I wanted to get up and do what they were doing.

Pontius Pilate was the first great censor and Jesus Christ the first great victim of censorship