If you get a reputation for being honest, you have 95 percent of the competition already beat.
In Canada, nobody is ever overthrown because nobody gives a damn.
I had, like any other young novelist, started out by believing the difficult thing was to get published and that, once you managed that, well, your financial problems were over. I discovered, like any other serious novelist, that actually they had only just begun.
It is no more expected of most producers to read a book than it is, say, of Ted Williams to dust off home plate.
I'm criticized by the feminists, by the Jewish establishment, by Canadian nationalists. And why not? I've had my pot shots at them. I'm fair game.
And furthermore did you know that behind the discovery of America there was a Jewish financier?
I'm world-famous. . . all over Canada.
It's all right to tell a wife the brutal truth, but you've got to go sort of easy with your lady-love.
Combine a certain amount of indifference with your ambition. Be carefully careless. If you don't succeed today, there is always tomorrow.
I want you to say to me right from the start, "We are here to serve customers. We're not here for me to make a lot of money. We're not here to bet on interest rates or credit spreads. We are here to serve our customers really well over a long period of time, and that's how you build a successful business. " And so I want to see that, too, you know?
I didn't want the Ramones being told what to be doing, and I wanted the Ramones being presented in the right light - the remaining Ramones.