I essentially write for myself.

Often we have no time for our friends but all the time in the world for our enemies.

I enjoy writing, sometimes; I think that most writers will tell you about the agony of writing more than the joy of writing, but writing is what I was meant to do.

I essentially write for myself.

It is extremely important to know what you don't want to find.

Writing, basically breaks down to relationships between people and that is what you write about.

Usually a good part of the people trying it end up not making it.

I have been writing for 50 years and readers still read my first book from when I was in the Marine Corps.

I was a terrible English student.

I am very proud of this work because it is more about the meaning of the Easter Rising and its relationship to what this whole century has been about, people liberating themselves, freeing themselves.

I have drawn inspiration from the Marine Corps, the Jewish struggle in Palestine and Israel, and the Irish.

I do not write for an audience.

So writing is a very, very difficult position to obtain... and retain.

I was too heavy to be a jockey and too honest to be a producer, so I became a writer.

Research to me is as important or more important than the writing. It is the foundation upon which the book is built.

You can try to reach an audience, but you just write what comes out of you and you just hope that it is accepted. You do not write specifically to a generation.

My first book was rejected nine times. It turned out to be a best seller, Battle Cry? in 1953.

English of course is your major tool, but it is not nearly so important as other aspects of writing for example you have to have some natural ability you can't buy it no one puts it there you're born with it.

The ability of a person to atone has always been the most remarkable of human features.

I was tough. I used everything to my advantage. I could be very ruthless.

Begin, be bold and venture to be wise.

It turned out that the buckyball, the soccer ball, was something of a Rosetta stone of an infinite new class of molecules.

I read one too many books about Joy Division by people who weren't there, and they always seem to dwell on the dark, the intense, the miserable image of Joy Division.

With my plays, when the lights go down, at least the audience isn't thinking, 'Oh, God, two more hours of this.'

My music is about being strong, even in your vulnerability.

You know, it's always fun to play the bad guy at the end of the day.

So, what genetic disposition do you need to be a CFO? Essentially, you need to be miserable, you need to be the sort of person who takes drinks away from people at the end of a party.

'The Underland Chronicles' is an unnecessary war for a very long time until it becomes a necessary war, because there have been all these points where people could have gotten off the train but they didn't; they just kept moving the violence forward until it's gone out of control.

Though the Grimms kept about 100 of the tales from the first edition, they changed them a good deal.

If a French woman wears jeans, it's never with flats - always heels.

We don't move on in the stunt unless it looks like a hit. So when I see it on TV, I'm generally satisfied that people are going to buy it.

You know, I look at Britney Spears who can't even drive without paparazzi in her face, and if I ever get to that level, which I don't expect, but if it does happen and success does happen to come my way, then I'm going to be prepared.

I generally hate the luxury modern apartment with too many things out of sight and so clean you cannot touch.

I think that if you get too close to the character, if you do too much historical research, you may find yourself defending your view of a character against the author's view, and I think that's terribly dangerous.

Innocence tinctures all things with brightest hues.

I think anybody alert to the inspiration to write has to be kind of sensitized to the unexpected.

I am passionate about my creativity.

Nothing is to be rated higher than the value of the day.

The world is blessed most by men who do things, and not by those who merely talk about them.

The more you're writing absolutely honestly, and absolutely bare of intention - even if it feels absolutely personal and small because it's at your own scale - other people relate to it much more.

You were made by God and for God and until you understand that life will never make sense.

And like the old soldier in that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the sight to see that duty.

When women work together, it's a bond unlike any other.

Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.