I'm amazed when I think about students today. They know from day one what they are going to be. We didn't. We just coasted. We just knew that things would work out.

Procrastination is a lazy man's apology.

A debt may get mouldy, but it never decays.

The impatient idealist says: 'Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.' But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.

Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation.

I know that an important message is not a novel. To say that we should all be kind to our neighbors is an important statement; it's not a novel.

I don't praise my people. I am their greatest critic.