“Don't assume, because you are intelligent, able, and well-motivated, that you are open to communication, that you know how to listen.”

“You should never assume. You know what happens when you assume. You make an ass out of you and me because that's how it's spelled.”

“This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: You hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the speech from the screams.”

“Writing is something that you don't know how to do. You sit down and it's something that happens, or it may not happen. So, how can you teach anybody how to write? It's beyond me, because you yourself don't even know if you're going to be able to. I'm always worried, well, you know, every time I go upstairs with my wine bottle. Sometimes I'll sit at that typewriter for fifteen minutes, you know. I don't go up there to write. The typewriter's up there. If it doesn't start moving, I say, well this could be the night that I hit the dust.”

“One of chief pieces of advice I give to aspiring rationalists is "Don't try to be clever." And, "Listen to those quiet, nagging doubts." If you don't know, you don't know what you don't know, you don't know how much you don't know, and you don't know how much you needed to know.”

“The world is speaking to you every day, you just don't know how to listen.”