Anything worth doing is going to be difficult.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, (cont. Specialization is for insects.
[T]here seems to have been an actual decline in rational thinking. The United States had become a place where entertainers and professional athletes were mistaken for people of importance. They were idolized and treated as leaders; their opinions were sought on everything and they took themselves just as seriously-after all, if an athlete is paid a million or more a year, he knows he is important. . . so his opinions of foreign affairs and domestic policies must be important, too, even though he proves himself to be ignorant and subliterate every time he opens his mouth.
Don't tell me violence doesn't solve anything. Look at Carthage.
It is better to copulate than never.
You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.
Happiness lies in being privileged to work hard for long hours in doing whatever you think is worth doing. One man may find happiness in supporting a wife and children. Another may find it in robbing banks. Still another may labor mightily for years in pursuing pure research with no discernible result. Note the individual and subjective nature of each case. No two are alike and there is no reason to expect them to be. Each man or woman must find for himself or herself that occupation in which hard work and long hours make him or her happy.
I think people have a tendency to think of a writer as someone who wants to go take a walk, maybe case a library. . . I think that's great sometimes but we really treat it like Monday through Friday come in early. You're not late for inspiration. You're working through it no matter what is happening even if you're writing a terrible version.
I was 12 when I ordered my first guitar out of the worn and discolored pages of the Sears and Roebuck catalog. The story that I bought it on the installment plan is untrue, the invention of a Hollywood press agent. Local color. I paid cash, $8, money I had saved as a hired hand on my uncle Calvin's farm, baling and stacking hay. Prairie hay, used as feed for the cattle in winter. It was mean work for a wiry boy, but ambition made me strong.
Once in awhile, you do encounter bad acquaintance, mean people, toxic aura. Don't let them rent space in your heart and mind. Don't let anyone make you so upset that you become someone you don't even recognise.
Something's been guiding me around throughout my life.