Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damm insane mistakes!

I've written about 2,000 short stories; I've only published 300 and I feel I'm still learning. Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind of career for himself as a writer. Ray Bradbury, 1967 interview (Doing the Math - that means for every story he sold, he wrote six "un-publishable" ones. Keep typing!)

First grade is very cheap. It's the later grades where you have to spend a lot of money if you don't do it right.

No person ever died that had a family.

Where would you like to go, what would you really like to do with your life? See Istanbul, Port Said, Nairobi, Budapest. Write a book. Smoke too many cigarettes. Fall off a cliff but get caught in a tree halfway down. Get shot at a few times in a dark alley on a Morrocan midnight. Love a beautiful woman.

Remember, with writing, what you’re looking for is just one person to come up and tell you, 'I love you for what you do.'

There's no reason to burn books if you don't read them.