“It is the writer's job to craft a story so compelling that strangers will pay to hear it.”

“If I wrote an autobiography, I'd have to sue the author for defamation...”

“By operating without a leader the scout bees of a swarm neatly avoid one of the greatest threats to good decision making by groups: a domineering leader. Such an individual reduces a group's collective power to uncover a diverse set of possible solutions to a problem, to critically appraise these possibilities, and to winnow out all but the best one.”

“He was always being told that writers never become famous or rich, but of course that was not why he wrote, he wrote simply because he felt he had interesting stories to tell that people might like to hear.”

“The act of consciousness is central; otherwise we are overrun by the complexes. The hero in each of us is required to answer the call of individuation. We must turn away from the cacaphony of the outerworld to hear the inner voice. When we can dare to live its promptings, then we achieve personhood. We may become strangers to those who thought they knew us, but at least we are no longer strangers to ourselves.”

“Being goal-oriented instead of self-oriented is crucial. I know so many people who want to be writers. But let me tell you, they really don't want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print. They don't want to go through the work of getting the damn book out. There is a huge difference.”

“It is so comic to hear oneself called old, even at ninety I suppose!”