Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.

You learned to accept, or you ended up in a small room writing letters home with Crayolas.

Because who would ever want to get close to another person if they knew how hard the letting-go part was? In your heart they only die a little at a time, don't they? Like a plant when you go away on a trip and forget to ask a neighbor to poke in once in awhile with the old watering-can, and its so sad—

...stupidity is one of the two things we see most clearly in retrospect. The other is missed chances.

Come to a book as you would come to an unexplored land. Come without a map. Explore it, and draw your own map.... A book is like a pump. It gives nothing unless first you give to it.

It's alright to feel fear, but sometimes a very bad idea to show it.

Talent is a wonderful thing, but it won't carry a quitter.