I know an awful lot of Hollywood people, who are so self-important, I can't understand it.

Where I am they can smell out a hurricane. My house survived Hurricane Hazel, but it didn't get past Hugo.

If I need something, I'll invent it.

I'm the most translated writer in the world, behind Lenin, Tolstoy, Gorki and Jules Verne. And they're all dead.

See, heroes never die. John Wayne isn't dead, Elvis isn't dead. Otherwise you don't have a hero. You can't kill a hero. That's why I never let him get older.

Nobody reads a book to get to the middle.

If you're a singer you lose your voice. A baseball player loses his arm. A writer gets more knowledge, and if he's good, the older he gets, the better he writes.