My philosophy of life is that the meek shall inherit nothing but debasement, frustration, and ignoble deaths.
K is for “Kenghis Khan”; He was a very nice person. History has no record of him. There is a moral in that, somewhere.
Writing is the hardest work in the world. I have been a bricklayer and a truck driver, and I tell you – as if you haven’t been told a million times already – that writing is harder. Lonelier. And nobler and more enriching.
Now begin in the middle, and later learn the beginning; the end will take care of itself.
The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.
You must never be afraid to go there.
I usually say I write for the smartest, cleverest, wittiest audience I know, and that’s me.
You’re a writer. And that’s something better than being a millionaire. Because it’s something holy.
You can live in your dreams, but only if you are worthy of them.
I refuse to write the same story twice. I keep experimenting. I keep learning how to work. I’ve been at it pretty much 50 years, and I’m now beginning to learn how to do the job well.
Don’t start an argument with somebody who has a microphone when you don’t. They’ll make you look like chopped liver.
I’m nothing. Nothing at all without writing. Without truth, my truth, the only truth I know, it’s all a gambol in the pasture without rhythm or sense.
Posing the question: does the god of love use underarm deodorant, vaginal spray and fluoride toothpaste?
The ability to dream is all I have to give. That is my responsibility; that is my burden. And even I grow tired.
People don’t die from the old diseases any more. They die from new ones, but that’s Progress, isn’t it? Isn’t it?
Because the chief commodity a writer has to sell is his courage. And if he has none, he is more than a coward. He is a sellout and a fink and a heretic, because writing is a holy chore.
When belief in a god dies, the god dies.
I have no mouth. And I must scream.
Get a day job, make your money from that, and write to please yourself.
For the first time we have a weapon that nobody has used for thirty years. This gives me great hope for the human race.