Most great writers suffer and have no idea how good they are. Most bad writers are very confident. Be willing to be a child and be the Lilliputian in the world of Gulliver, the bat girl in Yankee Stadium. That’s a more fruitful way to be.

When I got sober, I thought giving up was saying goodbye to all the fun and all the sparkle, and it turned out to be just the opposite. That's when the sparkle started for me.

I get about five memoirs per week in my mailbox, and few of them inspire anything but a desire to pick up the channel changer.

Faith is a choice like any other. If you're picking a career or a husband - or deciding whether to have a baby - there are feelings and reasons pro and con out the wazoo. But thinking it through is - at the final hour - horse dookey. You can only try out.

Nobody sounds good writing about your divorce, let's face it.

Be willing to be a child and be the Lilliputian in the world of Gulliver.

I was 40 years old before I became an overnight success, and I'd been publishing for 20 years.