“The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are.”

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

If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn.

I don’t think the robots are taking over. I think the men who play with toys have taken over. And if we don’t take the toys out of their hands, we’re fools.

That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.

Writing is not a serious business. It’s a joy and a celebration. You should be having fun with it.

Work is the only answer. I have three rules to live by. One, get your work done. If that doesn’t work, shut up and drink your gin. And when all else fails, run like hell!

Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.

We are the witnesses to the miracle. We are put here by creation, by God….We’re here to be the audience to the magnificent. It is our job to celebrate.

Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.

Treasure this day and Treasure yourself, truly, neither will ever happen again.

If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it.

How working for the wrong motives poisons our creativity and warps our ideas of success and failure.

Television is very dangerous. Because it repeats and repeats and repeats our disasters, instead of our triumphs.

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.

All education is self-discovery.

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

Most people don’t walk around the tools to process pain and fear, that kind of discomfort. In most cases, it’s unbearable to look at it, feel it, and/or address it. It’s why I’m such a fan of self-help books.

My mother gave me this book called Feature Films at Used Car Prices by a guy named Rick Schmidt. I gotta credit the guy, cuz he gave me the most practical advice. It empowers you.

Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.

Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.

I have three kids who like Harry Potter so I was sort of aware of it. You can’t really move from it: it’s on buses, in stores, it’s everywhere. One of my kids has read the books; the other two are too small but they like the movies.

I tried to make sense of the Four Books, until love arrived, and it all became a single syllable.

During the Depression, or back when we were fighting Hitler, people didn’t have time to sue a company if the coffee was too hot. There were urgent, pressing problems. If you think you have it tough, read history books.

If you think you have it tough, read history books.