Everyone— black as well as white— thinks it's going to be better over the next jump of land

Get busy living, or get busy dying

The work, the pride in your work, the worth of the work itself...all those things faded away to the magic-lantern shades they really were when the pain got bad enough

Fiction is the truth inside the lie

If there are ten thousand medieval peasants who create vampires by believing them real, there may be one–probably a child–who will imagine the stake necessary to kill it. But a stake is only stupid wood; the mind is the mallet which drives it home

The only way to go on is to go on. To say I can do this even when you know you can't.

As with all other aspects of the narrative art, you will improve with practice, but practice will never make you perfect. Why should it? What fun would that be?

Sooner or later even the fastest runners have to stand and fight.

you must not come lightly to the blank page

Where the world ends is where you must begin

I write to find out what I think.

If I kept saying it; if I kept reaching out. My accident really taught me just one thing: the only way to go on is to go on. To say 'I can do this' even when you know you can't.

the only mortal sin is giving up.

Talent is a wonderful thing, but it won't carry a quitter

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

People who try hard to do the right thing always seem mad

A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.

I, an old man, greet you Japanese schoolchildren from afar and hope that your generation may some day put mine to shame.

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.

The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest.

A little knowledge is dangerous. So is a lot.

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.

Success comes from curiosity, concentration, perseverance and self-criticism.

Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means.