"Giving your son a skill is better than giving him one thousand pieces of gold."

“Visual artists choreograph dances for the eyes, guiding visual journeys in specific ways. But when presented with little or nothing, the journeys of the eyes become erratic and finally still their restless searching. The eye and mind and heart grow quiet, come to rest, and begin to understand their own functioning more deeply.”

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.”

“In the opinion of the anarchist, the sum total of human ills is expressed in one word-authority.”

“I believe every era has its significance and the same holds true for players and coaches.”

“Happiness is a fragile thing, and alcohol, as I know from the house I grew up in, is dangerous to it.”

“I was doing gigs to stay alive. I worked two or three jobs at a time, there were times when I stayed up for 36 hours straight. I slept in shopping mall parking lots. A stand-up gig paid $35; then I could eat for another few days until the next gig. Literally, I was performing to live.”

“There is a crisis involving reading in certain communities.”

“Things that appear on the front page of the newspaper as 'fact' are far more dangerous than the games played by a novelist, and can lead to wars.”