I write all my sermons.

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.

I have never talked publicly or privately about the Jewish people, including conversations with President Nixon, except in the most positive terms.

Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.

Language is the dress of thought.

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.

I don’t want to tell President Obama how to make a speech. He’s a much better speech maker than I am. But I think always to tell the truth in a sometimes blatant way, even though it might be temporarily unpopular, is the best approach.

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

By giving people the power to share, we’re making the world more transparent.

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

Speak low, if you speak love.

Let your Discourse with Men of Business be Short and Comprehensive.

I can’t consciously explain how people feel after reading my books. All is too personal.

My favorite thing in life is writing about life, specifically the parts of life concerning love. Because, as far as I’m concerned, love is absolutely everything.

As I read more and more – and it was not all verse, by any means – my love for the real life of words increased until I knew that I must live with them and in them, always. I knew, in fact, that I must be a writer of words, and nothing else.

Journalism makes you think fast. You have to speak to people in all walks of life. Especially local journalism.

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.

When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.

I meant what I said and I said what I meant.

The thing about fantasy – there are certain things you just don’t do in fantasy.

My first phone was two tin cans tied together with string, and it worked pretty good.

My mother says I was writing before I was crawling. I wrote in the dirt with a twig.

At one time, you could sit on the Rue de la Paix in Paris or at the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv or in Medina and you could see a person come in, black, white, it didn’t matter. You said, ‚That’s an American‘ because there’s a readiness to smile and to talk to people.

When I write a book, I write a book for myself; the reaction is up to the reader. It’s not my business whether people like or dislike it.

When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it’s the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone’s talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false ‚intelligence‘ and selected ‚leaks.‘

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.

Some people are making music just for numbers and views.

My own experience is use the tools that are out there. Use the digital world. But never lose sight of the need to reach out and talk to other people who don’t share your view. Listen to them and see if you can find a way to compromise.

He that speaks much, is much mistaken.

Songs for me are like a message in a bottle. You send them out to the world, and maybe the person who you feel that way about will hear about it someday.

I want to negotiate what I’m worth. I want to put my analytics forward, man-to-man, and to be like, ‚This is what I’m owed now. Pay me.‘ And then we can talk.

I guess I’m just inspired to tell stories.

If you want what you’re saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody’s life. Your own, first.

Silence speaks so much louder than screaming tantrums. Never give anyone an excuse to say that you’re crazy.

My own books drive themselves. I know roughly where a book is going to end, but essentially the story develops under my fingers. It’s just a matter of joining the dots.

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

You always have to remember that if you say something negative, it’s going to come back to haunt you.

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.

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

I’ve had all six of my books reach the New York Times bestseller list, which is especially rewarding seeing as I flunked out of high school twice because I couldn’t write. It just goes to show you that we learn from our mistakes.

Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words.

Naturally, my stories are about women – I’m a woman. I don’t know what the term is for men who write mostly about men. I’m not always sure what is meant by ‚feminist.‘ In the beginning, I used to say, ‚Well, of course I’m a feminist.‘ But if it means that I follow a kind of feminist theory, or know anything about it, then I’m not.

I can honestly say, after talking about my mom passing away, I got the biggest weight off of my chest. Comedy is my therapy. That’s how I deal with my problems, my personal battles. I talk about it. I give it to my fans. When they laugh at it, it’s a release, for lack of a better word.

I can remember being home from school with tonsillitis and writing stories in bed to pass the time.

When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.

People are very reluctant to talk about their private lives but then you go to the internet and they’re much more open.

I started writing as a child. But I didn’t think of myself actually writing until I was in college. And I had gone to Africa as a sophomore or something – no, maybe junior – and wrote a book of poems. And that was my beginning. I published that book.

Everybody, to some extent, manipulates. Even children learn to cry when they want something. There are all kinds of subtle things we do to get others to follow our lead, not bother us, and so on.

Well I have a microphone and you don’t so you will listen to every damn word I have to say!

The answer to all writing, to any career for that matter, is love.

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.

Writing is like anything else – the more you do it, the better you get at it, the easier it comes, and the less concerned you’ll be about what’s going to happen to it, where it’s going, what it sounds like, whether it’s right.

I think it does Discworld good if I don’t write about it all the time: sometimes you have to get it out of your system.

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans – because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone – because we have the impulse to explain who we are.

The thing that we are trying to do at facebook, is just help people connect and communicate more efficiently.

I’ll think I have a few wonderful friends and all of a sudden, ooh, here it comes. They do a lot of things. They talk about you to the press, to their friends, tell stories, and you know, it’s disappointing.

If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.

The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.