Author Quotes

The French cook; we open tins.

Religion was nearly dead because there was no longer real belief in future life; but something was struggling to take its place - service - social service - the ants creed, the bees creed.

Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.

Headlines twice the size of the events.

When Man evolved Pity, he did a queer thing - deprived himself of the power of living life as it is without wishing it to become something different.

If you do not think about your future, you cannot have one.

He was afflicted by the thought that where Beauty was, nothing ever ran quite straight, which no doubt, was why so many people looked on it as immoral.

A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, Nothing else.

One's eyes are what one is, one's mouth is what one becomes.

A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it.

Beginnings are always messy.

The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy.

Love has no age, no limit; and no death.

I began to ration my writing, for fear I would dream through life as my father had done. I was afraid I had inherited a poisoned gene from him, a vocation without a gift.

Great, big, serious novels always get awards. If it's a battle between a great, big, serious novel and a funny novel, the funny novel is doomed.

Because, if one is writing novels today, concentrating on the beauty of the prose is right up there with concentrating on your semi-colons, for wasted effort.

You can take for granted that people know more or less what a street, a shop, a beach, a sky, an oak tree look like. Tell them what makes this one different.

We all not only could know everything. We do. We just tell ourselves we don't to make it all bearable.

Rock and roll stars have it much better than writers when they're on a tour.

It's not a bad thing for a writer not to feel at home. Writers - we're much more comfortable at parties standing in the corner watching everybody else having a good time than we are mingling.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.

I don't know if proud is the right word, but I am somebody who does not, on the whole, have the highest regard for my own stuff in that when I look all I get to see are the flaws.

And there never was an apple, in Adam's opinion, that wasn't worth the trouble you got into for eating it.

American Gods is about 200,000 words long, and I'm sure there are words that are simply in there 'cause I like them. I know I couldn't justify each and every one of them.

Also, I've already won all the awards.

The current total of countries in the world with First Amendments is one. You have guaranteed freedom of speech. Other countries don't have that.

Is the chemical aftertaste the reason why people eat hot dogs, or is it some kind of bonus?

As far as I'm concerned, the entire reason for becoming a writer is not having to get up in the morning.

A nice, easy place for freedom of speech to be eroded is comics, because comics are a natural target whenever an election comes up.

The world always seems brighter when you've just made something that wasn't there before.