And the simple people are trash. A herd of sheep that are good for shearing, but sometimes it's more profitable to slaughter them.

How easily the truth is lost, and how persistent lies are.

This is the inevitable consequence of a popular movie: you become the guy who wrote "the book that inspired the movie." Frankly speaking, I find it a bit insulting.

Nobody can be forced to commit an act of villainy. You can't push anybody into the mud; people always step into it themselves.

That's the hardest thing of all--never to become cynical, never to lose faith, never to become indifferent.

Fairy tales lie just as much as statistics do, but sometimes you can find a grain of truth in them.

It's great to be excited by your profession, whether you are a doctor or a writer. I started writing books when I was in medical school and, by the time I graduated, I realized that writing was more exciting to me than being a doctor. And if I tried to be a doctor and a writer, then both would suffer.