If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And here I make a rule—a great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last.

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic? ...Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.

I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied.

[Man] is the only animal who lives outside of himself, whose drive is in external things—property, houses, money, concepts of power. He lives in his cities and his factories, in his business and job and art. But having projected himself into these external complexities, he is them. His house, his automobile are a part of him and a large part of him. This is beautifully demonstrated by a thing doctors know—that when a man loses his possessions a very common result is sexual impotence.

Act out being alive, like a play. And after a while, a long while, it will be true.

New York is a wonderful city... It is going to be the capital of the world.