A great danger, or at least a great temptation, for many writers is to become too autobiographical in their approach to their fiction. A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.

there isn't enough of anything as long as we live. But at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance prevails.

Life and death matters, yes. And the question of how to behave in this world, how to go in the face of everything. Time is short and the water is rising.

That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.

Write about what you know, and what do you know better than your own secrets?

And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.

It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.

The places where water comes together with other water. Those places stand out in my mind like holy places.

Dreams, you know, are what you wake up from.

But I can hardly sit still. I keep fidgeting, crossing one leg and then the other. I feel like I could throw off sparks, or break a window--maybe rearrange all the furniture.

What is common becomes sense, but what is sensible doesn't always become common.

My mom and my dad was the best example of unconditional love I could see as a kid. I've known it my whole life. Interactions, kissing, hugging - it definitely wasn't the fake love.

At great cost to Himself, God has made it possible for each of us to live with Him eternally. Those who reject God's offer of a heavenly home will be assigned to hell.

Keep it simple: own as little as you can get away with, schedule everything, keep a notebook, don't let technology enslave you.

Mystery is the number one conjurer of ideas.

Simplicity is an acquired taste. Mankind, left free, instinctively complicates life.

The best songs that I write usually come in, like, two minutes, and I think a lot of songwriters would probably say those kind of songs that come just like that are the good ones.

Mary’s life shows that God accomplishes great deeds through those who are the most humble.

I never knew when I was gong to leave. I might be walking over to a kid's house, then of all a sudden I would just stick out my thumb and hitchhike across three states.

When afflictions arrest us, we shall murmur and grumble and struggle until we see that it is God that strikes.