“If you want to play, you gotta pay.”

“Life is more than love and pleasure,I came to dig for treasure.If you want to play, you gotta pay,You know it's always been that wayWe all came digging for treasure.”

“You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for... and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you.”

“See the TURTLE of enormous girth,On his shell he holds the earth.If you want to run and play,Come along the BEAM today.”

“It's a cash and carry world. Sometimes you pay a little. Mostly it's a lot. Sometimes, it's everything you have.”

“Stay hungry. It worked for Michelangelo, it worked for Picasso, and it works for a hundred thousand artists who do it not for love (although that might play a part) but in order to put food on the table. If you want to translate the world, you need to use your appetites. Does this surprise you? It shouldn’t. There’s no creation without talent, I give you that, but talent is cheap. Talent goes begging. Hunger is the piston of art.”

“I want to make you laugh or cry when you read a story . . .or do both at the same time. I want your heart, in other words. If you want to learn something, go to school.”