Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best; God finds it hard to give, because He would give the best, and man will not take it.
Beware the fictionist writing his own life. Even candor becomes a strategy.
The only reason I didn't kill myself after I read the reviews of my first book was because we have two rivers in New York and I couldn't decide which one to jumo into.
The worse we treat people in this country, the more delicately we talk about them.
If the French were really intelligent, they'd speak English.
I myself have not met a self-confessed liberal since the late fifties (and even then it was a tacky thing to admit, like coming from the middle class or the Middle West, those two gloomy seedbeds of talent), yet hardly a day passes that I don't read another attack on the "typical liberal" - as it might be announcing a pest of dinosaurs or a plague of unicorns.
Mr Michener, as timeless as a stack of National Geographics, is the ultimate Summer Writer. Just as one goes back to the cottage in Maine, so one goes back to one's Michener.
Glen Campbell told me, 'Stay out of the way of a good song. ' I think it's true. If a song's good, don't overdo it.
I most fear stupid people. Stupid people will do anything. Truly smart people will do only what is logical for them to do.
I see myself as improving. I think I'm a very curious person, and I like that about myself.
When I'm lonely, frustrated or hurt it usually comes from a male person and from unrequited love. I often carry that pain around with me and my ribs actually start to ache. That's when I sit down and write.