After the phone call from The New Yorker, I walked more than a mile to church to thank God. But then I told God I would talk to Him another time and darted home.

Maybe if we can find time to hug and cherish our families and the people around us, child suicide or college suicide wouldn't be rampant.

I think fiction allows us to sit for a while with people we would rather not meet.

I'm happy if my book makes you want to kiss your family... if we can reconcile with each other no matter where we are on the globe.

I'd say my religious life has shaped my worldview; my writing, I'd say too, is an extension of the pulpit...it reaches folks who don't care for organized religion in a different way.

I always felt my writing could benefit from the attention of established writers. I knew my work could grow and be better.

Boys annoyed her. Girls annoyed her. She should have been a cat.

Why do we Fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves back up.

Those who say only artists and architects can create are the ones who are elitist.

That of all the floures in the mede, Thanne love I most these floures white and rede, Suche as men callen daysyes in her toune.

Still fisheth he that catcheth one.

I helped put in a rink in Cadillac, Michigan, when my wife was very healthy. She helped them put it in and the rink is going full-bore the last time I was there.

Life is given to you like a flat piece of land and everything has to be done. I hope that when I'm finished, my piece of land will be a beautiful garden.

There is no act of love that is not an act of work or courage. No exceptions.

I really don't worry about what people say or what they have to say or what they think - it just doesn't matter.