Among all life forms, there are creatures with charisma and creatures without. It's one of those ineffable qualities we can't quite define, but we all seem to respond similarly to.

Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation.

I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done.

Living in a rural setting exposes you to so many marvelous things - the natural world and the particular texture of small-town life, and the exhilarating experience of open space.

You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.

Libraries are what is best about us as a society: open, exciting, rich, informative, free, inclusive, engaging.

One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day.

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder.

An ordinary life examined closely reveals itself to be exquisite and complicated and exceptional, somehow managing to be both heroic and plain.

There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

Thoughts, like water, will stay on course if we make a place for them to go. As you learn to control your thoughts, you can gain courage, conquer fear and have a happy life.

We don't avoid the word... just the action.

Life is the only real counselor wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.

I am the President of the United States of America, clothed in immense power! You will procure me these votes.

Reincarnation is the dissolution of the self. It's like going swimming in the ocean, no one ever comes out, because one has become the ocean.

The issue of managing through a crisis is you have to be decisive even if you don't have perfect information.

It is not possible to 'spoil' a child with love and affection...a child needs all the love and affection it can possibly get.

Mankiewicz was a brilliant director.

Let him who expects one class of society to prosper in the highest degree, while the other is in distress, try whether one side; of the face can smile while the other is pinched.

Nothing 'gainst Times scythe can make defence.