What is it about fire that's so lovely? No matter what age we are, what draws us to it?...The thing man wanted to invent, but never did...If you let it go on, it'd burn our lifetimes out. What is fire? It is a mystery. Scientists give us gobbledygook about friction and molecules. But they don't really know. Its real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences.

We're all fools," said Clemens, "all the time. It's just we're a different kind each day. We think, I'm not a fool today. I've learned my lesson. I was a fool yesterday but not this morning. Then tomorrow we find out that, yes, we were a fool today too. I think the only way we can grow and get on in this world is to accept the fact we're not perfect and live accordingly.

I had decided to be a magician well before I decided to be a writer. I was the little boy who would get up on-stage and do magic wearing a fake mustache, which would fall off during the performance. I'm still trying to perform those tricks. Now I do it with writing.

Writing is like sex. You have to save your love for the love object. If you go around spouting about your idea, there'll be no "charge" left. You can't father children that way.

I sometimes get up at night when I can't sleep and walk down into my library and open one of my books and read a paragraph and say, 'My God, did I write that?

A book has got smell. A new book smells great. An old book smells even better. An old book smells like ancient Egypt.

Collecting facts is important. Knowledge is important. But if you don't have an imagination to use the knowledge, civilization is nowhere.