Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

I don’t think there’s such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind.

Do not tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.

Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.

There was one incident at a movie theater where my girl got mad at these guys who were talking behind us. I never looked back there, but she was like, ‚Will you all just shut up!‘ And I just got up and moved three rows in front. She was like, ‚What are you doing?!‘ I was like, ‚You better get up here! I don’t play the fighting games.‘

Beautiful sentences pop into my head. Beautiful sentences that aren’t always absolutely accurate. Then, I have to choose between the beautiful sentence and being absolutely accurate. It can be a difficult choice.

If I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I’ve never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page.

In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand.

So live with men as if God saw you and speak to God, as if men heard you.

Time was when they that feared the Lord spake often to one another; I am afraid that now they more often speak one against another.

What I have is a malevolent curiosity. That’s what drives my need to write and what probably leads me to look at things a little askew. I do tend to take a different perspective from most people.

Language is the dress of thought.

Sincere words are not fine; fine words are not sincere.

Smiles are the language of love.

My mother always taught us that if people don’t agree with you, the important thing is to listen to them. But if you’ve listened to them carefully and you still think that you’re right, then you must have the courage of your convictions.

Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.

The day when I am no more than a writer I shall cease to be a writer.

There are a lot of self-imposed restrictions by people who somehow believe they have to fall in with a certain military cant. There was always a sense that we had to put things into words that would touch our troops‘ hearts, not just their heads.

Such a chimerical idea as telegraphing vocal sounds would indeed, to most minds, seem scarcely feasible enough to spend time in working over. I believe, however, that it is feasible and that I have got the cue to the solution of the problem.

And one more thing.

‚Good English‘ is whatever educated people talk; so that what is good in one place or time would not be so in another.

People talk to people who perceive nothing, who have open eyes and see nothing; they shall talk to them and receive no answer; they shall adore those who have ears and hear nothing; they shall burn lamps for those who do not see.

Here in the West, people often don’t like listening to their leaders, even if they are right.

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

He that speaks much, is much mistaken.

And you find as a writer there are certain spots on the planet where you write better than others, and I believe in that. And New Orleans is one of them.

We’re not trying to make you less of a man. We just want you to love us as deeply and as wholesomely and as fully as we love you.

In the normal flow of a conversation, our attention is divided. We hear parts of what other people are saying, in order to follow and keep the conversation going. At the same time, we’re planning what we’ll say next, some exciting story of our own.

Writing and cafes are strongly linked in my brain.

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.

People don’t realise how difficult it is to work with people day in and day out that know absolutely nothing.

Sometimes when you take strong stands, if you’re not called to do it, you’re dividing the audience you’re trying to reach.

One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.

Diplomacy is listening to what the other guy needs. Preserving your own position, but listening to the other guy. You have to develop relationships with other people so when the tough times come, you can work together.

It’s so tedious writing cookbooks or writing the recipes because I’ve never been much of a measurer. But to write a book, you have to measure everything.

I never have an intended audience. I just write, you know.

Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.

It’s pretty hard to be efficient without being obnoxious.

I feel like I was writing as I was learning to talk. Writing was always a go-to form of communication. And I knew I could sing from being in tune with the radio.

I spent much of my childhood in northern Quebec, and often there was no radio, no television – there wasn’t a lot to entertain us. When it rained, I stayed inside reading, writing, drawing.

It’s when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order to simply make a poem, that you fail.

The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.

Prayer is simply a two-way conversation between you and God.

Just talk to me as a father – not what the Constitution says. What do you feel?

But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

I learned from my dog long before I went to Gombe that we weren’t the only beings with personalities. What the chimps did was help me to persuade others.

The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film – whether it’s history, psychology, economics, or architecture – so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn’t going to help you unless you have something to say.

I had my jazz club and I had enough money. So I didn’t have to write for my living.

My priority is my books, at least at this point. What I have to do is write the narrative of this time.

Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache.

The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.

No one ever doubts that I mean what I say. The problem is I sometimes say all that I mean.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.

I have an urge to communicate. I think I’m a change from what it would be like dating a normal guy who doesn’t talk too much.

The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.

I’m not really good at fun-to-know, human interest stuff. We’re not ‚celebrities‘, whose life itself is a performance. Good or bad or ugly, we are our words. They’re what people meet.

Only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

I would impress upon your minds the fact that if you want to do a man justice, you should believe what a man says himself rather than what people say he says.