Not much comes easy in this world, Sonny. If it does, it's best to be suspicious of it. It's probably not worth much.

A lot of folks just get it in their head that, for instance, like writing memoirs is just easy. You just write down what happened. It doesn't quite work that way.

Despite the ills of our society, we largely live among compassionate, kind and optimistic people who are striving to do good. [...] Learn how to be happy and keep this in mind: You can't be happy unless you stop being afraid.

Not much comes easy in this world, Sonny. If it does, it's best to be suspicious of it. It's probably not worth much.

I would tell people some years later that I was raised an only child and so was my brother.

Writer's block to me is where you stop because you're afraid to go forward because you're not sure of what really should be happening next and you think, my gosh, if I choose this... you've got a hundred millions of avenues you could possibly go down but it's all an assess of characters.

The key to not getting rejected if you're writing for a magazine, is to know to read that magazine and know everything about them before you ever make a submission.