I'll take the shooting. I'm used to that. I've been shot a few times in the past, and I guess I can stand it, again.

Were talking about an attitude. Delayed gratification is there, planning, be able to give up something now to get something later.

I mean, when the world comes for your children, with the knives out, it's your job to stand in the way.

You know someone for a while and then one day a hole opens underneath them, and they fall out of your world.

Was there any human urge more pitiful-or more intense- than wanting another chance at something?

A pamphlet, no matter how good, is never read more than once, but a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over. And I maintain that if a person can put a few common sense facts into a song and dress them up in a cloak of humor, he will succeed in reaching a great number of workers who are too unintelligent or too indifferent to read.

I remind myself that no one day of writing matters all that much. A story is built somewhat like a stalactite - one little drip of mud and grit at a time.