Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.

And it was about then, about that time, that I began to find life unsatisfactory as an explanation of itself and was forced to adopt the method of the artist of not explaining but putting the blocks together in some other way that seems more significant to him. Which is a rather fancy way of saying I started writing.

William Saroyan wrote a great play on this theme, that purity of heart is the one success worth having. "In the time of your life--live!" That time is short and it doesn't return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, and the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, Loss, Loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition.

Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter.

Nobody knew my rose of the world but me... I had too much glory. They don't want glory like that in nobody's heart

Make voyages. Attempt them. There's nothing else.

The future is called 'perhaps,' which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you.