To live fully, one must be free, but to be free one must give up security. Therefore, to live one must be ready to die. How's that for a paradox?

We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.

Oh God, are there so many of them in our land! Students who can’t be happy until they’ve graduated, servicemen who can’t be happy until they are discharged, single folks who can’t be happy until they’ve found a mate, workers who can’t be happy until they’ve retired, adolescents who aren’t happy until they’re grown, ill people who aren’t happy until they’re well, failures who aren’t happy until they succeed, restless who can’t wait until they get out of town, and in most cases, vice versa, people waiting, waiting for the world to begin.

I finish the book so I can see how it's going to end. I write that first sentence, and if it's the right first sentence, it leads to the right second sentence and three years later you have a 500-page manuscript, but it really is like going on a trip, going on a journey. It's a voyage.

Toys are made in heaven, batteries are made in hell.

Words on a page can hypnotize you if the rhythm is right

Jackson Pollock said once, "I don't really feel that many people in this world are alive." He said, "That's why I like you, Tom. You're alive."