“Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.”

The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.

Wherever you go, you take yourself with you.

Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes and forgot.

What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.

In a perfect world, you could fuck people without giving them a piece of your heart. And every glittering kiss and every touch of flesh is another shard of heart you’ll never see again.

You can’t trust other people. If it’s important, you have to do it yourself.

Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.

I am selfish, private, and easily bored. Will this be a problem?

It’s like the people who believe they’ll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn’t work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean.

You get what anybody gets – you get a lifetime.

Black as night, sweet as sin.

Picking five favorite books is like picking the five body parts you’d most like not to lose.

Because,’ she said, ‘when you’re scared but you still do it anyway, that’s brave.

There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.

It’s not hard to own something. Or everything. You just have to know that it’s yours, and then be willing to let it go.

We often confuse what we wish for with what is.

He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars; General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite and flatterer: For Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars.

I would take a bad script and a good director any day against a good script and a bad director.

That’s my only goal. Surround myself with funny people, and make sure everyone has a good time and works hard.

It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.

I have eyes like a bullfrog, a neck like an ostrich and long, limp hair. You just have to be good to survive with that equipment.

My motto is more good times.

You cannot look at a person and tell whether they’re good or bad.

One or two of these scoundrel statesmen should be shot once a-year, just to keep the others on their good behavior.