A writer should always feel like he's in over his head

You cannot find peace by avoiding life.

She could have had a life as potent and dangerous as literature itself.

The secret of flight is this -- you have to do it immediately, before your body realizes it is defying the laws.

There is a beauty in the world, though it's harsher than we expect it to be.

we become the stories we tell ourselves

I was not ladylike, nor was I manly. I was something else altogether. There were so many different ways to be beautiful.

Language in fiction is made up of equal parts meaning and music. The sentences should have rhythm and cadence, they should engage and delight the inner ear.

I suspect any serious reader has a first great book, just the way anybody has a first kiss.

One always has a better book in one's mind than one can manage to get onto paper.

Take me with you. I want a doomed love. I want streets at night, wind and rain, no one wondering where I am.

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

How ugly we must look to them, spilling light into every dark corner to push back the shadows, blinding ourselves to the true beauty of emptiness.

And this is when I knew I was black for real.This is when I knew black was a citywhose walls were constantly under siege....

The truth can be glimpsed only through the eyes of death.

Presidents should not be exempted from the same standards of reason and evidence and justification that any other citizen or civil movement should be held to.

I like Americans, but they are somewhat monocellular. When I talk with Americans, I often wonder why they are so simpleminded.

A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step - Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others.

Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.

Every man in the world is better than someone else and not as good someone else.