The best audience is...

"The best audience is intelligent, well-educated, and a little drunk."
~Alben William Barkley

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often suprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers."

Not a one-shot deal

"The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon." - Robert Cormier

The Picture of Dorian Gray

"Well, Harry," said the old gentleman, what brings you out so early? I thought you dandies never got up till two, and were not visible till five." "Pure family affection, I assure you, Uncle George. I want to get something out of you."
~Oscar Wilde

What is reality, but a superficial label?

"But, dear sir, can you not see what I have written? Can you not touch it, smell it, taste it, in your mind? And you still dare to label my creations less present and factual than the convincing illusion we call reality?"

Albert Einstein (possibly!)

"There are two infinite things, the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not even sure about the universe."

H. G. Wells, on cheerfulness

"While there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles, I hold that a reasonable man has to behave as though he were sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness in not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful."