“I was hooked on writing. I mean, where else can you get paid for sticking your nose into somebody else's business?”

“And taking care of somebody else made me feel good. Like discovering you're more than you thought you were. More even than you hoped to be. ”

“Even if you forget everything else I want you to always remember that you are a person of value, and you have a friend who loved you enough to give you his most valued possession.”

“Maybe...in a way, this coffee reminds me of something. Maybe...maybe only a philosopher or a mad man would make this connection, but it's a little like life. I mean it's powerful going down and that doesn't even take into account the aftertaste, which really takes getting used to.”

“Look inside yourself and you'll find a world of things (a world of your own experiences)worth writing about.”

“But will somebody please tell me what's a person to do when they're too afraid of life to live and too afraid of death to die?”

“A person's got to think, otherwise that person's no better than a trained seal balancing a ball on his nose. If only that seal could think, he'd know he was making a thousand children laugh.”