And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too.

I’m not well-read, but when I read, I read well.

If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.

I don’t understand what it’s all about or what’s worth what, but if the people in the Swedish Academy decide that x, y or z wins the Nobel Prize, then so be it.

Those who have been writing literature have not been writing life.

This was life in the ’30s. This is the way it was with children in the South. I tried to make it general, the kind of things that might happen to any child.

After you finish a book, you know, you’re dead. But no one knows you’re dead. All they see is the irresponsibility that comes in after the terrible responsibility of writing.

A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.

I let the dog out, or I let him in, and we talk some. I let him know I like him, and he lets me know he likes me.

It’s easy to make an album full of great songs. But I want people to go for the ride. The songs have to make sense together.

SPAM is taking e-mail, which is a wonderful tool, and exploiting the idea that it’s very inexpensive to send mail.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

When your mother asks, ‚Do you want a piece of advice?‘ it is a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.

Writing and cookery are just two different means of communication.

Words can be said in bitterness and anger, and often there seems to be an element of truth in the nastiness. And words don’t go away, they just echo around.

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

I like it when someone tells me ‚I don’t agree.‘ This is a true collaborator. When they say ‚Oh, how great, how great, how great,‘ that’s not useful.

There’s nothing hippie about my picture of Christ. The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is.

One has to secrete a jelly in which to slip quotations down people’s throats – and one always secretes too much jelly.

Advertising works most effectively when it’s in line with what people are already trying to do. And people are trying to communicate in a certain way on Facebook – they share information with their friends, they learn about what their friends are doing – so there’s really a whole new opportunity for a new type of advertising model within that.

The label ‚liberal‘ or ‚conservative,‘ any – every time I hear that, I think of the great Gilbert and Sullivan song from ‚Iolanthe.‘ It goes, ‚Every gal and every boy that’s born alive is either a little liberal or else a little conservative.‘ What do those labels mean? It depends on whose ox is being gored.

If you can’t read, the only thing you can do is enjoy the pictures, not the whole story. Reading is the key to knowledge. Knowledge is the key to understanding. So read on, young man! Read on, young lady!

Anybody can be specific and obvious. That’s always been the easy way. It’s not that it’s so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it’s just that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.

Though silence is not necessarily an admission, it is not a denial, either.

When I talked to him on the phone yesterday. I called him George rather than Mr. Vice President. But, in public, it’s Mr. Vice President, because that is who he is.

Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.

The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended-and not to take a hint when a hint isn’t intended.

A friend of mine tells that I talk in shorthand and then smudge it.

To me, constructive criticism is when people take ownership of their ideas. That’s why I don’t listen to anything that’s anonymous. But it’s hard; when there’s something hurtful out there, I still want to read it over and over and memorize it and explain my point of view to the person.

You can only have one aim per debate.

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.

I looked the people of Louisiana in the eye and told them exactly what I thought in terms that normal people use.

A bore is a person who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.

When a thoughtless or unkind word is spoken, best tune out.

Debates, I hate.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

Facebook is really about communicating and telling stories… We think that people can really help spread awareness of organ donation and that they want to participate in this to their friends. And that can be a big part of helping solve the crisis that’s out there.

Never find fault with the absent.

I read all the time, and I’m often struck by something I’m reading.

Silence is more eloquent than words.

Better understated than overstated. Let people be surprised that it was more than you promised and easier than you said.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

Dickens is one of those authors who are well worth stealing.

My act is an exaggeration of a part of me. I’m much more expressive off stage.

A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.

Almost everybody will listen to you when you tell your own story.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

When I talk to kids, I’m really listening. When I do that, we have a little bit of a bigger connection than me being Kendrick Lamar and you being a student. It’s almost like we’re friends. Because a friend listens.

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

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

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.

It’s hard for me to grasp the concept of somebody being nervous when I’m talking to them.

I like learning more about people; I like to talk to people.

Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light.

It may be the part of a friend to rebuke a friend’s folly.

He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good.

Whoever the coach is, my job is to talk to him, understand him and be a better player under him and give my best.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

When you draw or paint a tree, you do not imitate the tree; you do not copy it exactly as it is, which would be mere photography. To be free to paint a tree or a flower or a sunset, you have to feel what it conveys to you: the significance, the meaning of it.