I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all.

no one dies happy, you can only die well

We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.

You’d be surprised what a person can live with,” Dan said.

The bad ideas kind of just drop out of the mix. You forget about them. The good ones stick around.

Remember that 'plumber in space' is not such a bad setup for a story.

How many times, over how many years, had he—a grown man—asked for the mercy of another chance? He was suddenly so sick of himself, so revolted, that he could have groaned aloud.