And the lesson was this; sit in the sun, head down, within a prickly vine, in a flickery light, or open light, and the world will come to you. The sky will come in its time, bringing rain, and the earth will rise through you, from beneath, and make you rich and make you full.

I don't try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.

...passing swiftly on toward further darknesses, but moving also toward a new sun.

Kerosene," he said, because the silence had lengthened, "is nothing but perfume to me.

That's the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.

Tell us again, for we forget, that work done without love is stillborn, mindless, and lost in the very hour of its deliverance.

Last night I thought about all the kerosene I've used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper. And I'd never even thought that thought before...It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life, and then I come along in two minutes and boom! it's all over.