Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.

If you have a success you have it for the wrong reasons. If you become popular it is always because of the worst aspects of your work.

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.

Well I think any author or musician is anxious to have legitimate sales of their products, partly so they’re rewarded for their success, partly so they can go on and do new things.

Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

It doesn’t matter who you are – if you dream big and if you work really hard, you can achieve unimaginable results, and that’s really good for the nation.

Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.

I’m the only person you’ve ever met who has read Longfellow.

I knew I wanted to do something creative. I didn’t think I’d have the luxury of doing something like that, because I didn’t know anyone who had pursued anything they really adored, but I had dreams for singing or writing.

If I’m a star, then the people made me a star.

If you get something right, you really feel it, right in your chest, on stage. I think it’s an incomparable experience.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – ‚tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

I guess, taking away all the theatrics or the costuming and the outer layers of what I do, I’m a writer… I write.

I’ve tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I’m afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.

History should be written as philosophy.

I can have people around a lot more because I’m not always chasing them away so I can work on my novel. My non-novel, I mean.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help… Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

I’ve never wanted to use my age as a gimmick, as something that would get me ahead of other people. I’ve wanted the music to do that.

What is easy is seldom excellent.

Once you start a working on something, don’t be afraid of failure and don’t abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest.

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.

If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business.

When schools flourish, all flourishes.

I had a lot of resistance, and not just to fame. I was always conscious of not changing.

Failure is not an option. Everyone has to succeed.

As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.

A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

Let man live at a distance from God, and the universe remains neutral or hostile to him. But let man believe in God, and immediately all around him the elements, even the irksome, of the inevitable organize themselves into a friendly whole, ordered to the ultimate success of life.

Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.

And the idea of just wandering off to a cafe with a notebook and writing and seeing where that takes me for awhile is just bliss.

Almost any biographer, if he respects facts, can give us much more than another fact to add to our collection. He can give us the creative fact; the fertile fact; the fact that suggests and engenders.

Well, I think that there’s a very thin dividing line between success and failure. And I think if you start a business without financial backing, you’re likely to go the wrong side of that dividing line.

I write for the same reason I breathe – because if I didn’t, I would die.

When I started out, I didn’t have any desire to be an actress or to learn how to act. I just wanted to be famous.

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.

A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.

I’m happy to be a writer – of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn’t a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use.

If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

Because you know when you first become famous, you start walking a little different because people are staring at you.

We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves. And we’ll also have a lot more joy in living.

Luck marches with those who give their very best.

We will not waver; we will not tire; we will not falter, and we will not fail. Peace and Freedom will prevail.

I’m a pretty decent writer. It comes easy to me. I don’t agonize over sentences. I write like I talk. I try to make them good books.

There is no substitute for victory.

I was saving the name of ‚Geisel‘ for the Great American Novel.

In the first book of my Discworld series, published more than 26 years ago, I introduced Death as a character; there was nothing particularly new about this – death has featured in art and literature since medieval times, and for centuries we have had a fascination with the Grim Reaper.

The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.

How well he’s read, to reason against reading!

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.

Read with care, George Orwell’s diaries, from the years 1931 to 1949, can greatly enrich our understanding of how Orwell transmuted the raw material of everyday experience into some of his best-known novels and polemics.

Years ago, when I first started being a big star, I had fans that were fanatical. It was when ‚Jolene‘ was a big hit.

This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room.

You’re not going to make Hemingway better by adding animations.

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

One is lucky to be born in a place where no one is doing it, because then you can say, ‚Well, obviously I can write better than everyone else in high school.‘ You have no idea of the competition.

I was a housewife, so I learned to write in times off, and I don’t think I ever gave it up, though there were times when I was very discouraged because I began to see that the stories I was writing were not very good, that I had a lot to learn, and that it was a much, much harder job than I had expected.

It’s stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.

I cannot live without books.

I’m the same kid who used to hop the trains with headphones and just go to downtown Manhattan, walk around and listen to music or walk through the city. The fame restricts that. It’s a small complaint in comparison to the benefits I get from it, but the restrictive part is what I don’t like – and the fact that it’s not reversible.

My measure of success is whether I’m fulfilling my mission.