What we like to think of ourselves and what we really are rarely have much in common.

The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.

An idea is like a cold germ: sooner or later someone always catches it.

As always, the blessed relief of starting, a feeling that was like falling into a hole filled with bright light. As always, the glum knowledge that he would not write as well as he wanted to write. As always the terror of not being able to finish, of accelerating into a brick wall. As always, the marvelous joyful nervy feeling of journey begun.

I don't want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got, the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that. It's, it's not as bright. So, that's my little commercial for that.

Symbolism exists to adorn and enrich, not to create an artificial sense of profundity.

I can remember being home from school with tonsillitis and writing stories in bed to pass the time.