"Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it.Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window."

"Alan, you seem to think we won't like you unless you do things just like everyone else. Have you ever thought we might like you because you're different?"

"As we passed his table, I saw that the device that imprisoned the book was clever but wicked-looking, as though the critic were holding the work - and it's author - in bondage."

"If the heights of our joy are measured by the depths of our gratitude, and gratitude is but a way of seeing, a spiritual perspective of smallness might offer a vital way of seeing especially conducive to gratitude."

"After 25-plus years as a lawyer, prosecutor, and defense attorney, I have developed a deep appreciation for both the wisdom of the law and the role that jurists play in framing the rights and responsibilities that define our society."