“I became an art major, took every art class my school had to offer. In college, I majored in Advertising Art and Design.”

“Were there stories I wrote along the way that were terrible clinkers? God, yes. But they were all a product of their time, and I did the best I could.”

“It's all about who's where on the food chain. When I'm the story editor, I expect my writers to follow my vision. When I'm working for another editor, I'm obliged to follow their vision.”

“If a story isn't working, I'm simply unable to finish it. That's what usually tells me something is wrong.”

“Lord of the Rings, I think, is far and away the most brilliantly done stuff.”

“Write till your ink be dry, and with your tearsMoist it again, and frame some feeling lineThat may discover such integrity.”

“It has come to be practically a sort of rule in literature that a man, having once shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled thenceforth to steal from the writings of others at discretion.”

“My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects.”

“I love a ballad but even too well if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.”

“If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue.”

“The object of Art is to give life a shape.”

“Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart.”

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”

“For thou hast given me in this beauteous face A world of earthly blessings to my soul, If sympathy of love unite our thoughts.”

“If ever thou shalt love,In the sweet pangs of it remember me;For such as I am all true lovers are,Unstaid and skittish in all motions elseSave in the constant image of the creatureThat is beloved.”

“Love sees with the heart and not with mind.”

“I love a ballad but even too well if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.”

“Ambition's debt is paid.”

“Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel? Why, now letme die, for I have lived long enough.”

“There is nothing capricious in nature and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feel it.”

“How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”

“The cannon will not suffer any other sound to be heard for miles and for years around it.”

“A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.”

“And fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns.”

“Some falls the means are happier to rise.”

“Many strokes, though with a little axe, hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak.”