Yes, it's hard to write. But it's harder not to.

Although by 1851 tales of adventure had begun to seem antiquated, they had rendered a large service to the course of literature: they had removed the stigma, for the most part, from the word novel.

Melville brought to the task a sound knowledge of actual whaling, much curious learning in the literature of the subject, and, above all, an imagination which worked with great power upon the facts of his own experience.

The region west of the Mississippi continued in the popular mind to be a strange land for which the reports of explorers and travellers did the work of fiction, and Cooper's Prairie had few followers.

IT is mere coincidence that Cooper was born in the year which produced The Power of Sympathy and that when he died Uncle Tom's Cabin was passing through its serial stage, and yet the limits of his life mark almost exactly the first great period of American fiction.

Yes, it's hard to write. But it's harder not to.

In fiction, too, after the death of Cooper the main tendency for nearly a generation was away from the conquest of new borders to the closer cultivation, east of the Mississippi, of ground already marked.

Familiar life, tending to sordidness, had been succeeded by remote life, generally idealized; historical detail had been brought in to teach readers who were being entertained.

The two most common charges against the older fiction, that it pleased wickedly and that it taught nothing, had broken down before the discovery, except in illiberal sects, that the novel is fitted both for honest use and for pleasure.

Guy Rivers, a conventional piece as regards the love affair which makes a part of the plot, is a tale of deadly strife between the laws of Georgia and a fiendish bandit.

The most familiar quotations are the most likely to be misquoted. Some misquotations are still variable, some have settled down to false versions that have obscured the true ones. They have passed over from literature into speech.

Having an investor on your board of directors who is naive about public markets or finds them complex or scary is non-optimal.

As an actor, you can think your way out of a lot of good things sometimes. I trust my instincts as an actor, and I trust the instincts of the creators, so it's a good combination.

Meetings are at the heart of an effective organization, and each meeting is an opportunity to clarify issues, set new directions, sharpen focus, create alignment, and move objectives forward

We need intelligence in this country. We need a certain toughness in this country, or we're going to end up like a lot of the other places, and we're not going to have a country left.

Dudes know I'm not a threat. Chicks know I'm not a threat.

This year, when I turn 65, I thought, 'So weird;' when I was a kid, people who were 65 either retired or died. I'm so nowhere near that.

To love someone means to see him as God intended him.

I refused David Letterman's proposal of marriage for obvious reasons, but thanks for asking.

They may try to stop you by their words and deeds, but like air you will rise above it all. You are unstoppable.

Before moving to Pennsylvania in 1999, I played bass in a newsroom rock band in South Florida for several years.

Let's turn British inventions into British industries, British factories and British jobs. Let them make pounds for us, not dollars marks or yen for others.

We thought we were running away from the grownups, and now we are the grownups.

There are people who believe that a Dolce & Gabbana T-shirt is more stylish than a supermarket one, and there are people who believe the opposite. There is room for everyone.

I wanted to be myself. Only myself.

The key things are about power and about growing up and realizing as you grow up that there are consequences for the choices you make, especially when you get seduced by power.

In 2006, I started making a film called 'Restraint of Beasts.' While I was making it, I had a personal disaster. My wife fell ill, so we stopped shooting halfway through. And then sadly, my wife died.

Each and every novel is a world outside the world - for a reader to visit, for comfort, consolation, escape, or challenge.

I'd done a ton of movies here in Hollywood, and I realized that every movie I'd done was somebody's else's work and someone else's vision.

You can spend a lifetime, and, if you're honest with yourself, never once was your work perfect.

I am excited about this. We've got half of our goal. I'd love to see us get a little bit more than half our goal and not be so deeply into this thing going into Sunday, but I feel good about everything.

I can't think of my life without Donna Reed. She has been such an enormous influence on my life.

Remember that what you have is unique because it's your own special way of looking at the world.

Beauty is not about the fairest skin. it's about the purest heart.

I write as well as I can. I'm a journalist at heart, so it's the story that matters.