It's a fine world, though rich in hardships at times.

No illusion is more crucial than the illusion that great success and huge money buy you immunity from the common ills of mankind, such as cars that won't start.

I make my share of mistakes, but one I never make is to underestimate the power of things. People imbued from childhood with the myth of the primacy of feeling seldom like to admit they really want things as much as they might want love, but my career has convinced me that plenty of them do. And some want things a lot worse than they want love.

Maybe you can make art out of unredeemed pain, but only if you're a genius -- Dostoyevsky perhaps.

People would be bored shitless if they had to love only the good in someone they care about.

Live through it," Call said. "That's all we can do.

I once owned a collection of 77 novels that won the Pulitzer. The only good novel of the bunch was The Grapes of Wrath.