“It’s not going to do any good to land on Mars if we’re stupid.”

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.

I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.

The local TV news is the greatest danger in your life. It’s all crap.

Memory is an illusion, nothing more. It is a fire that needs constant tending.

If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder.

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.

If you believe Jesus ever had a good word for war or torture or tax cuts for the rich, or raping the earth, or refusing water to dying migrants, then you might as well believe bunnies lay painted eggs.

A man who does not know how to be angry, does not know how to be good. Now and then a man should be shaken to the core with indignation over things evil.

Being a good director is knowing sometimes when not to say something.

I wish I was as good at love as I am at falling apart.

Everyone has influence, for good or bad, upon others.

Everyone deserves to feel good about themselves, and if you don’t then start because everyone is beautiful.

An effective speaker can do more damage or more good in a well-stated minute than an angry klutz could do in half an hour.

No man is a good citizen, a good neighbor, a good friend, or a good man just because he obeys the law. The intrinsic worth is determined mainly by the intrinsic make-up.