I used to save all my rejection slips because I told myself, one day I'm going to autograph these and auction them. And then I lost the box.

The real gladiators of the world are so humble in their origins and unremarkable in appearance that when we stand next to them in a grocery-store line, we never guess how brightly their souls can burn in the dark.

How do you caution a fawn about a cigarette a motorist has just flipped from his car window into a patch of yellow grass, or tell a sparrow that winged creatures eventually plummet to earth?

We all end up in the same place. Some sonner than others.

I feel blessed in the knowledge that I probably belong to the last generation that will remember what we call "traditional America."

But the participants [in war] never forgot the details of their experience, and like the Wandering Jew, they were condemned to remain their own history books, each containing a story they could not pass on to others and from which no one would learn anything of value.

Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work.