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.

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.

Arnold Bennett was a writer I admired. He was actually taking notes at his father's deathbed.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

For a country to have a great writer is like having another government. That's why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them.

A true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.

A writer may tell me that he thinks man will ultimately become an ostrich. I cannot properly contradict him.

The most important training, though, is to experience life as a writer, questioning everything, inventing multiple explanations for everything. If you do that, all the other things will come; if you don't, there's no hope for you.

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

Every sentence has a truth waiting at the end of it and the writer learns how to know it when he finally gets there.

It's essential not to have an ideology, not to be a member of a political party. While the writer can have certain political views, he has to be careful not to have his hands tied.

I was never really a writer, I was always more of a performer.

Without books I would not have become a vivacious reader, and if you are not a reader you are not a writer.

Well see, I'm a good enough writer that not everybody in my books talks exactly like I do.

So while it is true that I find really dark stuff funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the whole range of human emotions.

Here I am, where I ought to be. A writer must have a place where he or she feels this, a place to love and be irritated with.

Nowadays I'm not even sure if newspapers take into account whether a person is a good writer.

Remember Graham Green's dictum that childhood is the bank balance of the writer? I think that all writers feel alienated. Most of us go back to an alienated childhood in some way or another. I know that I do.

You know, Mamet is not a huge writer of female parts. Most of his movies don't even have women in them, so I'm lucky I'm in it at all.

A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.

I am a writer. I could not afford to take 15 months off from my writing career to play detective.