Jeff Dwyer
Eighty percent of success is showing up. Woody Allen
Nothing matters very much, and very few things matter at all. Lord Balfour's Contention
Wouldn't it be great if we didn't care who got the credit as long as the job got done? Mark Beeson
I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here. Stephen Bishop
I've never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. Daniel Boone
He's a man, who if he'd looked more like Robert Redford and had not been obsessed with doodoo could have been President. A description of Mel Brooks in the "Boston Phoenix"
Eat whatever you want and as much as you want. Drink whatever you want and as much as you want especially if someone else is paying. Make love to every woman that will have you. Then, if you don't become a great writer, who gives a shit? Charles Bukowski responding to a question about what someone should do to become a great writer.
A dog is prose; a cat is a poem. Jean Burden
Leap and the net will appear. John Burroughs
Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise man to be able to sell it. Samuel Butler, the Younger
No one ever committed suicide while reading a good book, but many have tried while trying to write one. Robert Byrne
Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck. George Carlin
I'm an occasional drinker, the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with a full beard. Raymond Chandler - The King in Yellow
I knew one thing: as soon as anyone said you didn't need a gun, you'd better take one along that worked. Raymond Chandler
I was sitting on the side of my bed in my pajamas, thinking about getting up, but not yet committed. I didn't feel very well, but I didn't feel as sick as I ought to, not as sick as I would feel if I had a salaried job. Raymond Chandler - Farewell, My Lovely
The first divorce is the only tough one. After that it's merely a problem in economics. Raymond Chandler - The Long Goodbye
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke
The West needs to relearn what the rest of the world has never forgotten – that there is nothing sinful in leisure as long as it does not degenerate into mere sloth. Arthur C. Clarke
If at first you don't succeed, hide all evidence that you ever tried. Billy Collins
All dogs look up to you. All cats look down on you. Only a pig looks at you as an equal. Winston Churchill
I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure. Clarence Darrow
The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall. Civilizations grow old and die out and after an era of darkness. New races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on still young, still fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead. Clarence Day
Don't jump on a man unless he's down. Finley Peter Dunne
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. Albert Einstein
Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence. John Kenneth Galbraith
One should fight like the devil the temptation to think well of editors. They are all, without exception – at least some of the time – incompetent or crazy. By the nature of their profession they read too much, with the result they grow jaded and cannot recognize talent though it dances in front of their eyes. John Gardner
I don't think I'll get married again. I'll just find a woman I don't like and give her a house. Lewis Grizzard
That's all it is, this business of writing. Just get the fucking toys over the mountain. William Goldman referring to The Little Engine That Could
Nobody knows anything. William Goldman
There is, incidentally, no way of talking about cats that enables one to come off as a sane person. Dan Greenburg
We're not selling a cure for cancer. We're just selling books. Haskell Gruberger
People do not object to artists deserving success – only to their getting it. Max Harrison
Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it. Moses Hadas
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs. Christopher Hampton
The worm that destroys you is the temptation to agree with your critics, to get their approval. Thomas Harris
Courage is grace under pressure. Ernest Hemingway
Never go on trips with anyone you do not love. Ernest Hemingway
The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them. Ernest Hemingway
Drinking is a way of ending the day. Ernest Hemingway
Life is short
Art is long
Experiment is risk
Opportunity is fleeting. Hippocrates 460 B.C. - 377 B.C.
Never explain – your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway. Elbert Hubbard
Reading and sauntering and lounging and dozing, which I call thinking, is my supreme happiness. David Hume
When Michael Jackson, a poor black boy who grew up to be a rich, white woman, married Elvis Presley's daughter the Scientologist. Makes you proud to be an American, dudn't it? Molly Ivins
There is nothing so disturbing to one's well-being and judgment as to see a friend get rich. Charles Kindleburger
To write is human. To edit is divine. Stephen King
The dude abides. Jeffrey Lebowski
Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting. "Holy Shit!! What a Ride! Mavis Leyrer
Books seem to me to be pestilent things, and infect all that trade in them… with something very perverse and brutal. Printers, binders, sellers and others that make a trade, and gain out of them; have universally so odd a turn and corruption of mind, that they have a way of dealing peculiar to themselves, and not conformed to the good of society, and that general fairness that cements mankind. John Locke
Storytelling is like sex. We all do it naturally. Some of us are better at it than others. David Mamet
I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it. Groucho Marx
To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. Somerset Maugham
When I hear artists or authors making fun of businessmen, I think of a regiment in which the band makes fun of the cooks. Henry Louis Mencken
God made the cat to give man the pleasure of stroking a tiger. Francois-Joseph Mery
A guy comes home from college to find his mother sleeping with his uncle, and there's a ghost running around. Write it good, it's Hamlet; write it bad, it's Gilligan's Island. Lorne Michaels
Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money. Moliere
I drink to make other people interesting. George Jean Nathan
Every book is new to the person who hasn't heard of it yet. Charlie Nurnberg
The enemy of the author is not piracy, but obscurity. Tim O'Reilly
Editors are extremely fallible people, all of them. Don't put too much trust in them. Maxwell Perkins
I am an artist and should be exempt from shit. P. J. Proby
I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me! Max Reger
Luck is the residue of design. Branch Rickey
Most people who have been done a favor consider it an opportunity to show their incorruptibility rather than their gratitude. This is not only considerably cheaper morally, but it sometimes increases their pride so much that pretty soon they look down on their benefactor. Arthur Schnitzler
The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie. Joseph A. Schumpeter
Happy the man who can endure the highest and the lowest fortune. He, who has endured such vicissitudes with equanimity, has deprived misfortune of its power. Seneca
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. Upton Sinclair
Amid chaos of images, we value coherence. We believe in the printed word. And we believe in clarity. And we believe in immaculate syntax. And in the beauty of the English language. William Shawn
I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day. Frank Sinatra
Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want. Dan Stanford
The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business. John Steinbeck
Ninety percent of everything is crap. Theodore Sturgeon (Sturgeon's Law)
Live well. It's the greatest revenge. The Talmud
God Hates a Coward. Tomahawk
I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it. Mark Twain
Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside. Mark Twain
Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person. Mark Twain
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. Mark Twain
To write books is easy; it requires only pen and ink and the ever-patient paper. To print books is a little more difficult, because genius so often rejoices in illegible handwriting. To read books is more difficult still, because of the tendency to go to sleep. But the most difficult task of all that a moral man can embark on is to sell a book. Sir Stanley Unwin
For true happiness, it is not enough to be successful oneself . . . one's friends must fail. Gore Vidal
Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies. Gore Vidal
True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
Now dead,
And I were at a party given by a billionaire
On Shelter Island.
I said, "Joe, how does it make you fell
To know that our host only yesterday
May have made more money
Then your novel 'Catch-22'
Has earned in its entire history?"
And Joe said, "I've got something he can never have."
And I said, "What on earth could that be, Joe?"
And Joe said, "The knowledge that I've got enough."
Not bad! Rest in peace! Kurt Vonnegut
I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or banana split. Kurt Vonnegut
The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away. Tom Waits
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. Tom Waits
The main thing is not to let go of the vine. Johnny Weissmuller
A bad word from a colleague can darken a whole day. We need encouragement a lot more than we admit, even to ourselves. Orson Welles
He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends. Oscar Wilde
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go. Oscar Wilde
He has Van Gogh's ear for music. Billy Wilder
In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of his characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season spring. Judge Woolsey opinion concerning pornography in Joyce's Ulysses.
Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy. W. B. Yeats