All you umpires, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. Its my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases. At sunset, Ive won or lost. At sunrise, Im out again, giving it the old try.

I've grown up on a diet of metaphors. If young writers would find those writers who can give them metaphors by the bushel and the peck, then they'll become better writers - to learn how to capsualize things and present them in metaphorical form.

The women in my life have all been librarians, English teachers, or booksellers. If they couldn't speak pidgin Tolstoy, articulate Henry James, or give me directions to Usher and Ox, it was no go. I have always longed for education, and pillow talk's the best.

Evil has only the power we give it.

Americans are far more remarkable than we give ourselves credit for. We've been so busy damning ourselves for years. We've done it all, and yet we don't take credit for it.

We were put here as witnesses to the miracle of life. We see the stars, and we want them. We are beholden to give back to the universe.... If we make landfall on another star system, we become immortal.

The world doesn't give a damn about you unless you do something. Those are the rules; I didn't make them. If you are lazy, if you don't get the work that you love done, the world won't care if you die tomorrow and go into the grave and are gone and forgotten forever.

It's lack that gives us inspiration. It's not fullness.