He used to tell me, 'Do what you like to do. It'll probably turn out to be what you do best.

Grub Street turns out good things almost as often as Parnassus. For if a writer is hard up enough, if he’s far down enough (down where I have been and am rising from, I am really saying), he can’t afford self-doubt and he can’t let other people’s opinions, even a father’s, keep him from writing.

Be proud of every scar on your heart, each one holds a lifetime’s worth of lessons.

Hard writing makes easy reading.

Young writers should be encouraged to write, and discouraged from thinking they are writers.

Hope was always out ahead of fact, possibility obscured the outlines of reality.

National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.