Pleasant experiences make life delightful. Painful experiences lead to growth.
I think one of the paradoxes of writing fiction is when people enjoy it, they want it to be real. So they look for connections.
I think the average guy thinks they're pro-woman, just because they think they're a nice guy and someone has told them that they're awesome. But the truth is far from it.
I never hear white writers get asked, 'Do you worry about how you represent white people?'
I always wanted to read. I always thought I was going to be a historian. I would go to school and study history and then end up in law school, once, I ran out of loot trying to be a history high school teacher. But my dream was always to place myself in a situation where I was always surrounded by books.
I look most like myself. . . when I'm wearing my black, nerdy engineering glasses.
I always think about myself as a writer; that comes out of being a reader first, and I don't think I kind of got to really playing with language in any formal way probably until I was in my mid-twenties.
The Dutch must be understood as they really are, the Middle Persons in Trade, the Factors and Brokers of Europe. . . they buy to sell again, take in to send out again, and the greatest Part of their vast Commerce consists in being supply'd from All Parts of the World, that they may supply All th World Again.
The fatal errors of life are not due to man's being unreasonable: an unreasonable moment may be one's finest moment. They are due to man's being logical.
Love is like the measles; the older you are when it hits you, the harder it takes. Cheer up, you won't die of it.
You see, when our attitudes outdistance our abilities, even the impossible becomes possible.