I have only one bit of advice to beginning writers: be sure your novel is read by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

When this is over, I'm not going to be the same guy. I am going to live as if I were a great man.

No man leaves where he is and seeks a distant place unless he is in some respect a failure.

The dead are dead but they rely on us to fulfill their hopes.

I am always interested in why young people become writers, and from talking with many I have concluded that most do not want to be writers working eight and ten hours a day and accomplishing little; they want to have been writers, garnering the rewards of having completed a best-seller. They aspire to the rewards of writing but not to the travail.

Being goal-oriented instead of self-oriented is crucial. I know so many people who want to be writers. But let me tell you, they really don't want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print. They don't want to go through the work of getting the damn book out. There is a huge difference.

I've spent my life trying to be better than I was, and I am a brother to all who share the same aspiration.