There is a mistaken idea, ancient but still with us, that an overdose of anything from fornication to hot chocolate will teach restraint by the very results of its abuse.
Pleasure of love lasts but a moment, Pain of love lasts a lifetime.
It's better to be hated for who you are, than to be loved for someone you're not. It's a sign of your worth sometimes, if you're hated by the right people.
You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good. . . Joan Crawford is dead. Good.
[On gay men:] Let me say, a more artistic, appreciative group of people for the arts does not exist. . . They are more knowledgeable, more loving of the arts. They make the average male look stupid.
At 50, I thought proudly: Here we are, half century! Being 60 was fairly frightening. You want to know how I spent my 70th birthday? I put on a completely black face, a fuzzy black Afro wig, wore black clothes and hung a black wreath on my door.
If you want a thing done well, get a couple of old broads to do it.
In movies and in television the robots are always evil. I guess I am not into the whole brooding cyberpunk dystopia thing.
There are few things in life that bring as much joy as the joy that comes from assisting another improve his or her life.
Journeys become very good metaphors. They always have the character put into circumstances that reveal him. If I had based my characters in New York and had them just sitting and thinking about life, it would be like what contemporary U. S. fiction is about. That is very heavy, literally, for me. It doesn't become mainstream enough because the pages don't turn themselves.
If you beat your head against the wall, it is your head that breaks and not the wall.