In a way, a certain amount of self-criticism is a good thing, because it keeps you humble. Realizing that no matter what success you've achieved, you can still make enemies makes you humble, too.

Mom and Dad would stay in bed on Sunday morning, but the kids would have to go to church.

People never knew we were poor, but out of that poverty came the most incredible inventions - board games, recipes... we never stopped inventing.

It's taken me a long time to become the person I am, for all the ugliness to fall away. The rotten flesh is gone, and the seed is there. I can touch that now.

Only a couple of times have I ever been to church and felt enlightened by it.

After I got this job at the syndicate, I started sending them money so they could go on trips and do the things they could never afford to do. All the while, I never knew that my mother was socking money away.

The most profound statements are often said in silence.

My brother was a great audience, and if he liked the picture, he would laugh and laugh and laugh, and he would want to keep the picture. Making people laugh with an image I had created... what power that was!

But I married a guy who treated me very badly, but I was happy. I was miserable, so I was happy.

Yes, and when I had Aaron, he left me, and I didn't know how to raise a child. And I wasn't close to my parents, and because I was too proud to go to my parents for help, I mistreated that little baby. I didn't want a baby.

My mother was a very literate person who had educated herself. She had an exceptional vocabulary.

No matter how old you are, there's always something good to look forward to.

Complaining is good for you as long as you're not complaining to the person you're complaining about.

I've had some tremendous adventures, good and bad. It's part of the novel, and a novel isn't interesting if it doesn't have some good and bad. And you don't know what good is if bad hasn't been a part of your life.

In a way, a certain amount of self-criticism is a good thing, because it keeps you humble. Realizing that no matter what success you've achieved, you can still make enemies makes you humble, too.

If I was in love with someone, I would get their picture out of the school yearbook and do portraits. If I was curious about sex, I would draw pictures of it. There were no books for me to look at. Then I would go find my father's matches to burn the paper.

You think about child abuse and you think of a father viciously attacking a daughter or a son, but in my family it was my mother. My mother, I would say, was a... very brutal disciplinarian.

But even though all this was going on at home, if someone had tried to take me away and put me in a children's home, I couldn't have handled it. Even though my mother was very brutal, it was my home.

I've always felt that life is a novel, and part of it is written for you, and part of it is written by you. It's up to you to write the ending, ultimately.

I often think you bring unhappiness on yourself, because if you don't like yourself very much, you allow yourself to be influenced by people who reinforce that.

And my father was a comic. He could play any musical instrument. He loved to perform. He was a wonderfully comedic character. He had the ability to dance and sing and charm and analyze poetry.

I was just so lucky to have a wonderful life after a tough marriage.

Aaron and I will be joined at the hip until the day we die. We have loved and hated each other since the day he was born. He's very much a part of my heart. He's going to broadcasting college now, and he'll do fine. But he came into a world that did not welcome him.

I know it sounds crazy, but I have had far more connection with my parents after their deaths.

You see, anything I imagined, I could draw.

Sure, I've had some bad times, but everybody does. But people don't get to talk about them like I do, unless they do to a therapist. People don't get to put them in the paper like I do.

When Kate was born, she was born into a world of joy and happiness and confidence. The difference between the children is night and day. She's happy, she's thriving, she's full of self-confidence. I tell her she's beautiful every day before I send her off to school.

That's what my mother did. And my father was the first person she'd met who treated her kindly. She was terrified of men, and she married a very meek, kind, dear man. And she had the upper hand. She ruled the roost.

I loved the Little Lulu stories, where she would fantasize that her bedroom rug would turn into a pool of water, and she could dive down into the center of the world.

An apology is the super glue of life. It can repair just about anything.

An apology is the superglue of life. It can repair just about anything.

Not being able to sleep is terrible. You have the misery of having partied all night. Without the satisfaction.

Not being able to sleep is terrible. You have the misery of having partied all night? Without the satisfaction.

Not being able to sleep is terrible. You have the misery of having partied all night... without the satisfaction.

But this is a true saying among men: the gifts of enemies are no gifts and profitless.

The Prophet defeated the enemies of Islam even when he and his followers were small in number.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

There are no enemies in science, professor. Only phenomena to study.

A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Be assured those will be thy worst enemies, not to whom thou hast done evil, but who have done evil to thee. And those will be thy best friends, not to whom thou hast done good, but who have done good to thee.

Our most bitter enemies are our own kith and kin. Kings have no brothers, no sons, no mother!

Keep your enemies in front of you.

As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?

Many have had their greatness made for them by their enemies.

It is not enough for me to win. My enemies must lose.

Comforts and syphilis are the greatest enemies of mankind.

I'm just grateful to be on this planet. I have no enemies that I know of. I'm just the guy who makes happy.