“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.”

“Oh! it offends me to the soul to hear a robust periwig-pated fellow, tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings.”

“I can counterfeit the deep tragedian;Speak and look back, and pry on every side,Tremble and start, at wagging of a straw,Intending deep suspicion.”

“The virtue you would like to have, assume it is already yours, appropriate it, enter into the part and live the character just as the great actor is absorbed in... the part he plays.”

“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.”

“Benvolio- "By my head, here come the Capulets." Mercutio- "By my heel, I care not.”

“Some report a sea-maid spawn'd him; some that he was begot between two stock-fishes. But it is certain that when he makes water his urine is congealed ice.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact makes much impression on him, and another none.”

“Every man's own character is written so all who will may read it, in the expression of his eyes, the tone of his voice, the posture of his body, the style of his clothes, and the nature of his deeds!”

“It is a point that I repeat over and over again in teaching public speaking. It is not so much what you say as it is the tone and manner in which you say it that makes a lasting impression.”