My experience has been that people who die for causes have few friends in death.
Neither our own passing nor the passing of an era is a tragedy, no matter how much we would like to think it is.
Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work.
That’s one of the great advantages of age. You can say, I don’t want to, I don’t care, you can throw temper tantrums, and nobody minds.
Don’t undo a brave and noble deed. Don’t rob yourself of your own virtue.
Don’t let anyone tell you that age purchases your freedom from fear of death.
We all end up in the same place. Some sonner than others.
Today, there are more opportunities for writers in terms of access to larger success, but it’s more difficult to publish a literary novel in the lower ranges. In other words, you almost have to hit a home run. You can hit a triple, maybe, but nobody’s interested in a single.
Louisiana is a fresh-air mental asylum.
Never read bad stuff if you’re an artist; it will impair your own game.
How do you caution a fawn about a cigarette a motorist has just flipped from his car window into a patch of yellow grass, or tell a sparrow that winged creatures eventually plummet to earth?
To misuse one’s talent, to be cavalier about it, to set it aside because of fear or sloth is unpardonable.
A lie is an act of theft. It steals peoples faith and makes them resent themselves.
And every good artist knows that the gift comes from somewhere else, and it’s there for a reason, and that’s to make the world a better place.
The only thing an artist has to remember is to never lose faith in his vision.
The story of Ulysses and Agamemnon and Menelaus, of Jesus, of the Good Knight of Chaucer, lives in every one of us.
Is there a design in the events of our lives? Or do things just happen, much like a junk yard falling down a staircase? If it’s the latter, how do you deal with it?
Why do I always feel like you’re trying to staple my umbilical cord to the corner of your desk?
One day you’ll have a quiet heart.
Age is a clever thief. It takes a little from you each day, so you’re not aware of your loss until it’d irreversible.