The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.

Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.

Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.

The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.

Any man who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad.

We see things as we are, not as they are.

Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.

A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood.

Why did God give me two ears and one mouth? So that I will hear more and talk less.

Some things are so unexpected that no one is prepared for them.

Satire is focused bitterness.

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.

Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.

I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.

Extremists think "communication" means agreeing with them.

The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.

An angel is a spiritual creature created by God without a body for the service of Christendom and the church.

I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe.

First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people.

If you are going to do something wrong at least enjoy it.

Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense.

Extremists think 'communication' means agreeing with them.

Hope is ambiguous, but fear is precious.

A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after theyre dead.

The purpose of life is not to be happy but to matter to be productive to be useful to have it make some difference that you have lived at all.

Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate, and play games - but not with pleasure.

The purpose of life is not to be happy "but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.

I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.

What I try to do for my readers is to pass on some of the things that I found out about being thirteen after doing it for forty years.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

Young people discovering their sexuality must know they walk with a strong tradition and that they are not alone. They have a right to information without being pressured.

Being a publicist is like management in a lot of ways - you're their friend, you're their mother, you're their confidante.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak three times, and then I'll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?

I don't like being recognised, I have no interest in being famous at all, I just do what I do. If I could be like Captain Kirk and beam myself up and then beam myself down, I would!

I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.

Being a musician is what I do, but it's not what I am.

We're all like children. We may think we grow up, but to me, being grown up is death, stopping thinking, trying to find out things, going on learning.

We've had it very clear to the Bosnians that our obligation to equip and train their forces is completely conditional on the foreign forces being gone.

My parents were amazing people who had no business being together - and they knew it.

Teachers started recognizing me and praising me for being smart in science and that made me want to be even smarter in science!

Sure, I get the blues. But what I try to do, is apply joy to the blues, you know? I don't know if it's a technique, or just being bent that way, being raised by the folks I was raised by.

Kind thoughts are rarer than either kind words or deeds. They imply a great deal of thinking about others. This in itself is rare. But they also imply a great deal of thinking about others without the thoughts being criticisms. This is rarer still.

The judge turned his back towards me, sitting back on his judge's chair, while I was in the witness stand being questioned. The whole courtroom was full of these anarchists, leftists, communists and Jewish lobbyists.

For me, being in front of the camera and training go hand in hand.

I define success as being comfortable with yourself and your life. And that is about as good as it gets, really.