We can love an honest rogue, but what is more offensive than a false saint?

The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.

Groan and forget it.

A rattlesnake that doesn't bite teaches you nothing.

Justice is a terrible but necessary thing.

Sleeplessness is a desert without vegetation or inhabitants.

A big iron needle stitching the country together.

I've done more harm by the falseness of trying to please than by the honesty of trying to hurt.

There are two barriers that often prevent communication between the young and their elders. The first is middle-aged forgetfulness of the fact that they themselves are no longer young. The second is youthful ignorance of the fact that the middle aged are still alive.

Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely necessary.

Teaching is the royal road to learning.

We want the facts to fit the preconceptions. When they don't it is easier to ignore the facts than to change the preconceptions.

The sick soon come to understand that they live in a different world from that of the well and that the two cannot communicate.

Nothing is so dear as what you're about to leave.

Faithfulness to the past can be a kind of death above ground. Writing of the past is a resurrection; the past then lives in your words and you are free.

Memory is a magnet. It will pull to it and hold only material nature has designed it to attract.

A taste for irony has kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humor, for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself.

In their sympathies, children feel nearer animals than adults.

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting.

A broken bone can heal, but the wound a word opens can fester forever.

Only a fool would refuse to enter a fool's paradise when that's the only paradise he'll ever have a chance to enter.

If you train people properly, they won't be able to tell a drill from the real thing. If anything, the real thing will be easier.

The West is color. Its colors are animal rather than vegetable, the colors of earth and sunlight and ripeness.

You read a book from beginning to end. You run a business the opposite way. You start with the end, and then you do everything you must to reach it.

The source of one's joy is also often the source of one's sorrow.

If you want a baby, have a new one. Don't baby the old one.

We can love an honest rogue, but what is more offensive than a false saint?

It is very east to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own.

A religious awakening which does not awaken the sleeper to love has roused him in vain.

In my time and neighborhood (and in my soul) there was only one standard by which a woman measured success: did some man want her?

Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.

A broken bone can heal but the wound a word opens can fester forever.

At fourteen you dont need sickness or death for tragedy.

A taste for irony has kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humor for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself.

Pleasure in irony ... is an ego trip.

We assume that celebrities have it easy and so love to watch them having to endure a bit of hardship.

I love Nautilus and stretching. The results are immediate, and that gives me the motivation to continue.

I am a ordinary teenager. I fall in love like everyone else.

I don't call you handsome, sir, though I love you most dearly: far too dearly to flatter you. Don't flatter me.

The essential elements of giving are power and love - activity and affection - and the consciousness of the race testifies that in the high and appropriate exercise of these is a blessedness greater than any other.

My mother keeps things in perspective for me. She makes me realize that the acting I do and love is no more important than what one of my brothers does-he works in a shoe repair shop. If my career ever tapers off, I'll go to college.

Actors love mental disorders, dialects, and corsets. Give them one of the three and they're happy.

My goal is, of course, for this show to do well, and I would love it if people liked it.

I love living on that stage. Without that, I'd die.

I love my DSL, but I love my WiFi more. And I probably get on the Internet 40 percent to 50 percent more because of the combination of those technologies.

But I love New York. I used to set my alarm clock when I was there, and get up at 4am and get a coffee, just because I could.

I love children and I love men, but I can't commit to either for the rest of my life.

Sitting at home the way I do, I'd just love the hear from people. It'd be a great help in passing the time.