The system shaves the dice on the side of those with money and power, and anyone who believes otherwise deserves anything that happens to him.

One day you'll have a quiet heart.

Don't let anyone tell you that age purchases your freedom from fear of death.

Never read bad stuff if you're an artist; it will impair your own game. I don't know if you ever played competitive tennis, but you learn not to watch bad tennis; it messes up your game. Art's the same way.

But perhaps age has taught me that the earth is still new, molten at the core and still forming, that black leaves in the winter forest will crawl with life in the spring, that our story is ongoing and it is indeed a crime to allow the heart's energies to dissipate with the fading of light on the horizon.

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.

And like most middle-aged people who hear the clock ticking in their lives, I had come to resent a waste or theft of my time that was greater than any theft of my goods or money.