Quotes on Literature

You never achieve success unless you like what you are doing.

Each nation feels superior to other nations. That breeds patriotism - and wars.

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it... that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.

Isn't connecting people to distant lands and culture one of the strengths of good literature?

There is a growing literature about the multitude of journalism's problems, but most of it is concerned with the editorial side of the business, possibly because most people competent to write about journalism are not comfortable writing about finance.

I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.

Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies.

There's no better way to inform and expand you mind on a regular basis than to get into the habit of reading good literature.

You should employ your little grey cells.

Children's books aren't textbooks. Their primary purpose isn't supposed to be "Pick this up and it will teach you this." It's not how literature should be. You probably do learn something from every book you pick up, but it might be simply how to laugh.

I have so very much. I have so very little.

So I went out and bought myself a copy of the Writer and Artist Yearbook, bought lots of magazines and got on the phone and talked to editors about ideas for stories. Pretty soon I found myself hired to do interviews and articles and went off and did them.

In many ways, it was much, much harder to get the first book contract. The hardest thing probably overall has been learning not to trust people, publicists and so forth, implicitly.

I loved writing a book in which, in some ways, it's very, very classical, and in some ways I'm breaking lots of rules about what you can do and what you can't do.

I wanted to write something that would be a comedy in the sense of making people feel happier when they finish it than they did when began it.

We all not only could know everything. We do. We just tell ourselves we don't to make it all bearable.

As far as I'm concerned, the entire reason for becoming a writer is not having to get up in the morning.

I was raised a Christian and was a stone-faced acid head.

People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense.

My share of the work may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious.

People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.