"I like a good story well told...." - Quote by Mark Twain

“We are all beggars, each in his own way.”

“France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.”

“They say that you can't live by bread alone, but I can live on compliments.”

“With a novel, you have the reader with you a lot longer, and you owe him a lot more. Obviously you have to have a plot - I say "obviously," although I think a lot of fiction doesn't, and nothing seems to happen. But to me, there should be something that happens, and it should be at least vaguely plausible. And because the readers are going to be with these characters for a long time, you have to get to know them and like them and want to know what happens to them.”

“If you would stick to the concrete, and put your discoveries in the form of entertaining anecdotes about your adventures with women, your conversation would be easier to follow.”

“If I can't find a theme, I can't make a film anyone else will feel. I can't laugh at intellectual humor. I'm just corny enough to like to have a story hit me over the heart.”

“One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.”

“I belong to this notebook and this pencil.”

“It was not a choice of writing or not writing. It was a choice of loving my life or not loving my life. To keep writing was always a first priority.... I worked probably 25 years by myself.... Just writing and working, not trying to publish much. Not giving readings. A longer time than people really are willing to commit before they want to go public.”