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I think each time you start a story or novel or whatever, you are absolutely at the bottom of the ladder all over again. It doesn't matter what you've done before.

I don't know if anybody has moved up the ladder more quickly than I have.

I don't believe in that kind of pragmatic career ladder stuff.

I care so much less, now, about going up the ladder; if I cared about the ladder I would be doing it all very wrong.

I don't ever remember them telling us or teaching us that the only way we could be more successful is if other people were less successful. They never inculcated the belief that somehow, in order for us to climb the ladder, other people have to come down from the ladder.

The middle-class ladder has rungs that no longer exist for many trying to climb higher. Instead, for too many, in too many places, their chore is simply trying to hang on.

You cannot climb the ladder of success dressed in the costume of failure.

There's no 'Chutes and Ladders' in life.

The first story I ever sold was to 'Argosy' magazine, which no longer exists. That issue also contained work by several other more celebrated writers, like Ray Bradbury - so I felt I had at least one toe on the ladder.