The first thing you learn in life is you're a fool. The last thing you learn in life is you're the same fool.

I've never been in charge of my stories, they've always been in charge of me. As each new one has called to me, ordering me to give it voice and form and life, I've followed the advice I've shared with other writers over the years: jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.

Programs like 'Jeopardy' and 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' are ridiculous. They're the stupidest shows in history. They're making us dumber. They don't give us information, they give us facts, factoids. You don't learn who Napoleon was and how he was motivated. You learn what year he was born, and when he died. That's useless.

At the top of your lungs, shout and listen to the echoes. You must live life at the top of your voice!

Any carefully planned thing destroys the creativity. You can't think your way through a story; you have to live it. So, you don't build a story; you allow it to explode.

Thus through half-belief, we are often doomed to repeat that very past we should have learned from.

What do you do, go around trying everything once?' he asked. 'Sometimes twice.