“I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it.”

Facts and truth really don’t have much to do with each other.

Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.

Hollywood is a place where a man can get stabbed in the back while climbing a ladder.

Only when the clock stops does time come to life

As long as I live under the capitalistic system I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people.

At one time I thought the most important thing was talent.

There are some things for which three words are three too many, and three thousand words that many words too less.

Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error.

Artists do; I don’t mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy.

She was bored. She loved, had capacity to love, for love, to give and accept love.

Good ones don’t have time to bother with success or getting rich.

It’s not when you realize that nothing can help you — religion, pride, anything — it’s when you realize that you don’t need any aid.

War and drink are the two things man is never too poor to buy.

My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whisky.

Talk, talk, talk: the utter and heartbreaking stupidity of words.

Who gathers the withered rose?

Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.

Everyone knows I’m married; I just don’t discuss it. Because it’s a part of my life that I’d rather keep private… When your whole life is played out in front of everybody, for your sanity, you need parts that are just yours.

There’s no secret about success. Did you ever know a successful man who didn’t tell you about it?

Knowin’ all about baseball is just about as profitable as bein’ a good whittler.

I am not really much interested in talking to adults, although I suppose practically every mother in the kingdom knows my name and my books. It’s their children I love.

The truth is scary, but knowing nothing is crippling.

You know, you spend your whole life feeling like you don’t quite fit in anywhere.

I have written, probably, more books for children than any other writer, from story-books to plays, and can claim to know more about interesting children than most.