You have to respect people's suffering. To deny that the world is unfair and painful for most of the people living in it would be false and judgmental.

I have nothing but respect for the purist who won't work for the pharaoh. But I'm not that strong.

Experience as much as you can and absorb a lot of reality. Otherwise, your writing will have the force of a Wiffle ball.

To me, a mark of maturity is realizing that nobody runs the world. Fat cat politicians and secret conspiracies don't control our lives. In reality, the world is much more complex than that.

You have to respect people's suffering. To deny that the world is unfair and painful for most of the people living in it would be false and judgmental.

I tend to look at the world more from Voltaire's perspective. Incidentally, if you haven't read Candide lately, it's a fabulous book. It's riotously, laugh-out-loud funny in a way that no Shakespeare comedy will ever be.

I have a deep suspicion of social institutions and tradition in general.