Quotes By Author | Novelguide

"All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible."

"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go."

"A budget tells us what we can't afford, but it doesn't keep us from buying it."

"Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me."

"All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster's autobiography."

"Artists can color the sky red because they know it's blue. Those of us who aren't artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we're stupid."

"All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers."

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it."

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself."

"Everybody wants to eat at the government's table, but nobody wants to do the dishes."

"Nothing encourages creativity like the chance to fall flat on one's face."

"A handful of pine-seed will cover mountains with the green majesty of a forest. I, too, will set my face to the wind and throw my handful of seed on high."

"The thoughts of Plato and Machiavelli... don't seem quite enough armor for a world beset with splitting the atoms, urban guerrillas, nineteen varieties of psychotherapists, amplified guitars, napalm, computers, astronauts, and an atmosphere polluted simultaneously with auto exhaust and TV commercials."

"Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them."

"Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold."

"Of all lies, art is the least untrue."

"Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry."

"You can't expect to hit the jackpot if you don't put a few nickels in the machine."

"Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights. Because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper."

"If the career you have chosen has some unexpected inconvenience, console yourself by reflecting that no career is without them."

"Failure is success if we learn from it."

"Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one."

"The three-martini lunch is the epitome of American efficiency. Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful and a snootful at the same time?"

"History is more or less bunk."

"The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed."

"A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business."

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal."

"In a state-run society the government promises you security. But it's a false promise predicated on the idea that the opposite of security is risk. Nothing could be further from the truth. The opposite of security is insecurity, and the only way to overcome insecurity is to take risks. The gentle government that promises to hold your hand as you cross the street refuses to let go on the other side."

"Many people, other than the authors, contribute to the making of a book, from the first person who had the bright idea of alphabetic writing through the inventor of movable type to the lumberjacks who felled the trees that were pulped for its printing. It is not customary to acknowledge the trees themselves, though their commitment is total."