A person is born form the deep conditions of the world. A person pokes up from the world and roll along like a wave. Until it's time to sink down again. Up, down. Person, wave.

Sometimes when she told stories about the past her eyes would get teary from all the memories she had, but they weren't tears. She wasn't crying. They were just the memories, leaking out.

I have a pretty good memory, but memories are time beings, too, like cherry blossoms or ginkgo leaves; for a while they are beautiful, and then they fade and die.

Life is fleeting. Don't waste a single moment of your precious life. Wake up now! And now! And now!

The past is weird. I mean, does it really exist ? It feels like it exists, but where is it ? And if it did exists, but doesn’t now, then where did it go ?

There are many answers, none of them right, but some of them most definitely wrong.

But in the time it takes to say now, now is already over. It's already then.

You never know who it's going to be, or what they'll bring, but whatever it is, it's always exactly what is needed.

The wondrous thing about nature, her gift to us, is her wanton promiscuity. She reproduces herself with abandon, with teeming infinite generosity.

Everything in the universe is constantly changing, and nothing stays the same, and we must understand how quickly time flows by if we are to wake up and truly live our lives.

When I start writing novels, I go into them with a spirit of inquiry, rather than to substantiate prejudices I had in the beginning. If you don't do that, you can't write good characters.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body and prayer is to the soul.

A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

For years now, I've wanted to fall asleep. The sort of slipping off, the giving up, the falling part of sleep. Now sleeping is the last thing I want to do.

For what was burned at the stakes beyond the fires did endure

I'm celebrating my love for you with a pint of beer and a new tattoo

Our teaching may contain nothing impious, nothing diluted.

A slave in the fields one night He's running along Gets far enough to be a free man And he's feeling so strong

I've always relied on producing more material than I need. With each of my published novels I've written around four times the amount of material that's ended up in the book.

People more easily tolerate opposition than a contradiction

If you wish to be loved, be modest; if you wish to be admired, be proud; if you wish both, combine external modesty with internal pride.