I promised myself that I would write as well as I can, tell the truth, not to tell everything I know, but to make sure that everything I tell is true, as I understand it. And to use the eloquence which my language affords me.

I’ve read a lot of really great characters in some really crappy stories, where I said, like, ‚Boy I could shine here, but the story sucks.‘ I don’t want to be part of that.

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.

The first story I finished was when I was six years old.

It’s considered acceptable in our culture to approach perfect strangers, as often or not who may be in extremis, and evangelise. I don’t see why that’s considered a normal thing.

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

You want to be a writer? Start writing. You want to be a filmmaker? Start shooting stuff on your phone right now.

I think it all comes back to being very selfish as an artist. I mean, I really do just write and record what interests me and I do approach the stage shows in much the same way.

For my own part, I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly.

Marriage is a series of desperate arguments people feel passionately about.

When we launched a new company, I reviewed the ads and marketing materials and asked those presenting the campaign to read everything aloud to test the phrasing and concept. If I could grasp it quickly, then it passed with muster. We would get our message across only if it was understandable at first glance.

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.

I do not, in fact, use many puns. Certainly there are far fewer than people believe. But I suspect the ones I do occasionally use tend to hang around in people’s memories for a while.

Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.

And, after all, what is a lie? ‚Tis but the truth in a masquerade.

I don’t say very much I don’t really think through. I know that sounds inconsistent with Joe Biden.

The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Each day we understand better what the Indians say, and they us, so that very often we are intelligible to each other.

I believe that one key to success is to accept truth, no matter how it’s spoken.

And when I was young, my family was perfectly nice. I write a lot about it, as you noticed. But it was rather limited. I think, I don’t think anyone in my family would really feel I’d done them an injustice by saying that. We didn’t see many people. There were many books. It was as if I wanted to get away from home.

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.

Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

I remember the first time I heard a teenager say ‚LOL.‘ Just what? But it means ‚laugh.‘ Why don’t you just laugh? What are you doing?

It usually helps me write by reading – somehow the reading gear in your head turns the writing gear.

Never explain – your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

Rational discussion is useful only when there is a significant base of shared assumptions.

An honest man is always a child.

I’ve never had a divorce, but I’ve seen so many of my friends, my sister, my family go through that stuff, so I try to write for the people that can’t write about it. I take on their sorrow, so I’m able to kind of express it, or their joy.

Give thy thoughts no tongue.

I used to stutter really badly. Everybody thinks it’s funny. And it’s not funny. It’s not.

To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.

I woke up one day and thought: ‚I want to write a book about the history of my body.‘ I could justify talking about my mother because it was in her body that my body began.

Any fact that needs to be disclosed should be put out now or as quickly as possible, because otherwise the bleeding will not end.

The drawing teacher has this problem of communicating how to draw by osmosis and not by instruction, while the physics teacher has the problem of always teaching techniques, rather than the spirit, of how to go about solving physical problems.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

Music helps me tell my story. That’s where I can really be heard. But there’s so much focus on the things that aren’t music.

I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.

When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I’m only really alive when I’m writing.

There’s one way to find out if a man is honest – ask him. If he says, ‚Yes,‘ you know he is a crook.

I knew from the age of 16 that I wanted to be a writer because I just didn’t think I could do anything else. So I read and read and wrote short stories and dreamed of escape.

I’ve written some great things. That’s a gift, but there’s consequences. Yeah, you get this great work, but you suffer. You really, really suffer.

The best thing is to always keep honest people around, because when you have a bunch of yes men around that know that you’re making a mistake but let you go on with it, that’s when it ruins your mind state as an artist.

There is a huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future. The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented, and we believe this is the most important problem we can focus on.

Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.

Good writing is like a windowpane.

I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.

I particularly like Twitter, because it’s short and can be very funny and informative. It’s a little bit like having your own radio program.

Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.

It’s not easy to define poetry.

Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.

If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.

We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.

The truth is, I have absolutely no professional credentials – literally, which is why I’m teaching at MIT.

I like sitting and writing with my buddies.

When you walk into my classroom, I’m going to give it to you straight, just like in the real world, because that’s the only way to prepare you for the real world.

It’s a rather rude gesture, but at least it’s clear what you mean.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m a writer who’s writing books, and therefore, I don’t want to die. You’d miss the end of the book wouldn’t you? You can’t die with an unfinished book.