I thought that all generations were lost by something and always had been and always would be

He remembered poor Julian [actually F. Scott Fitzgerald] and his romantic awe of them and how he had started a story once that began, "The very rich are different from you and me." And how someone had said to Julian, "Yes, they have more money."

I read my own books sometimes to cheer me when it is hard to write, and then I remember that it was always difficult, and how nearly impossible it was sometimes.

You cannot stop trusting people in life but I have learned to be a little bit careful. The way to make people trust-worthy is to trust them.

The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.

Life breaks all of us but some of us get stronger in the broken places.

Develop a built-in bullshit detector.