“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.”

“Virtue and genuine graces in themselves speak what no words can utter.”

“Then others for breath of words respect, Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.”

“Nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will.”

“I play for high stakes and given an audience - there is no act too daring or too noble.”

“The beginning of pride and hatred lies in worldly desire, and the strength of your desire if from habit. When an evil tendency becomes confirmed by habit, rage is triggered when anyone restrains you.”

“Your worst enemy is hiding within yourself, and that enemy is your nafs or false ego.”

“Do not cast away an honest man for a villain's accusation.”

“To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.”

“Free from gross passion or of mirth of anger constant spirit, not swerving with the blood, garnish'd and deck'd in modest compliment, not working with the eye without the ear, and but in purged judgement trusting neither? Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem.”

“I say, without characters, fame lives long.”

“Lord Bacon told Sir Edward Coke when he was boasting, The less you speak of your greatness, the more shall I think of it.”

“'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed, When not to be, receives reproach of being, And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed, Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.”

“If thou art rich, thou art poor; for, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows, thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey, and death unloads thee.”

“O momentary grace of mortal men,Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!”

“We will all laugh at gilded butterflies.”