But I think there are a set of experiences that turn a potential writer into a working writer, and then there are places in your life were you start to recognize what you want to do.

I have written a book. This will come as quite a shock to some. They didn’t think I could read, much less write.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

Life is a series of commas, not periods.

The man who has no problems is out of the game.

Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.

To be awake is to be alive.

I always entertain great hopes.

You can’t learn to write in college. It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do – and they don’t. They have prejudices. They may like Henry James, but what if you don’t want to write like Henry James? They may like John Irving, for instance, who’s the bore of all time.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.

I can understand wanting to have millions of dollars; there’s a certain freedom, meaningful freedom, that comes with that.

Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.

No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence.

Each life makes its own immitation of immortality.

I think that if all kids aspire to reach a point where they could feed themselves and a few of their friends, this would be good for the world surely.

Sometimes, reading a blog, which I do infrequently, I see that generations of Americans have been wilfully crippled, and can no longer spell or write a sentence.

Death is a fearful thing.

My whole life and my whole career, even through my music, I tell people: let’s unify; let’s show more love.

Life is very difficult. One of the most ancient of religious ideas that emerges everywhere, I would say, is that life is essentially suffering.

I was a journeyman chef of middling abilities. Whatever authority I have as a commenter on this world comes from the sheer weight of 28 years in the business. I kicked around for 28 years and came out the other end alive and able to form a sentence.

There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.

Which death is preferably to every other? ‚The unexpected‘.

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

I have rules for a lot of areas of my life. Love is not going to be one of them.

If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once.

Life loves the liver of it.

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.

When I write about a 15-year old, I jump, I return to the days when I was that age. It’s like a time machine. I can remember everything. I can feel the wind. I can smell the air. Very actually. Very vividly.

I left school to concentrate on racing. It was a family decision between my mum, dad and myself.

Life is hard. After all, it kills you.

Very rarely do I talk off the top of my head on stage. I’m not an improv guy. I’m a writer-guy who presents what he’s written.

People who don’t like my work say that the connections seem too arbitrary. But that’s how life is.

Writing is my love. If you love something, you find a lot of time. I write for two hours a day, usually starting at midnight; at times, I start at 11.

People think, because we’re young, we aren’t complex, but that’s not true. We deal with life and love and broken hearts in the same way a woman a few years older might.

Sometimes I’ve called writing a disease. If so, I’m glad that it caught me.

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.

One aspect of appellate judging is we have to give reasons for all of our decisions. And when you sit down and try to write it out, sometimes you find that your first judgment wasn’t the right one.

It is better to die than to preserve this life by incurring disgrace. The loss of life causes but a moment’s grief, but disgrace brings grief every day of one’s life.

Doing graphic novels is cool! It’s fun! You get to write something, and then see it visually page by page, panel by panel, working with the artist, you get to see it fleshed out.

When a person starts to talk about their dreams, it’s as if something bubbles up from within. Their eyes brighten, their face glows, and you can feel the excitement in their words.

My life is a struggle.

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.

My life is not unlike Truman’s. I can’t go anywhere.

Feeling like you’re respected among the people who do the same thing you do is incredible and necessary.

People think because I’ve got some success, I’ve made it, but in my eyes it’s like, ‚How long has Jay Z been in the business? How many albums has he got?‘ Not that I’m trying to be Jay Z, but I am trying to be around for a long time.

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

I’ve never been a very prolific person, so when creativity flows, it flows. I find myself scribbling on little notepads and pieces of loose paper, which results in a very small portion of my writings to ever show up in true form.

I guess you could say it’s always been my destiny to be a performer.

I was married a few times, and one of my husbands was jealous of me writing.

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

In every parting there is an image of death.

To me, comedy is just twisting reality. It’s commenting or observing or twisting life.

I meet young people who know me and are familiar with my stuff. They know the package. They might have cherry-picked five or six key tunes. That’s how it seems to work. I sometimes wonder if they realise they are not getting the whole context.

We must think and act like a nation of a billion people and not like that of a million people. Dream, dream, dream!

I think the message has already been sent to Hollywood, which is that this kid’s a hard worker, he’s talented, and people are coming out to see him. And when you have box-office results, Hollywood treats you different. Hollywood stands up.

Life is abundant, and life is beautiful. And it’s a good place that we’re all in, you know, on this earth, if we take care of it.

Give a critic an inch, he’ll write a play.

A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons.

In my career as a director, there’s always been some point where you get halfway through it, or three-quarters, and you go: ‚What is this thing all about, and why am I telling the story? Does anybody really care about seeing this?‘ At that time you have to say: ‚OK, forget that and just go ahead.‘