And because we have been given thought, will, and imagination, albeit on a human scale, we too have this power to create.

Money and beauty are defenses against the sorrows of this world but neither can undo the past. Only time will conquer time. The way forward is the only way back to innocence and to peace.

His resiliency was not the resiliency of the dumb but of a lamb who can remember hurt but cannot sustain the anger or the bitterness that brittles the heart.

Then perhaps you shouldn't sleep. The imagination has terrifying power.

It's a world of sorrow, Oddie, because we make it so.

Living in a monastery, even as a guest rather than a monk, you have more opportunities than you might have elsewhere to see the world as it is, instead of through the shadow that you cast upon it.

Life had been hard on this girl, Jacob, but she had enough courage for an army.

Human beings not only can't bear too much reality, we flee from reality when someone doesn't force us close enough to the fire to feel the heat on our faces.

When you laugh at yourself, you gain perspective. Then you realize that the mistakes you made, as long as they didn't hurt anyone but yourself——well, you can forgive yourself for those.

My imagination is as rich as my bank account is empty.

You can't fix things with a hug, but you can't make them any worse either.

A friend gave me a rainbow as a gift, so I put it up in the sky so everyone could share.

I haven't a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatsoever.

Horses are calmer people. They also don't throw things at cats.

Nobody in my family ever surfed, but they would always bring me to the beach.

There are very few people I can call real, close friends. They're very, very precious to me.

When a man is on the verge of passing out from pain, it seemed wrong to notice how beautiful he was.

I don't try to be satirical. I just try to get what's in my head on the page. And that part is hard for me to do. It takes a long, long time to make it poetic, somewhat essayistic.

It's the Night of the Living Dead. It's scary out here.

My hero is Roger Federer.

If you imitate someone, you owe them a royalty check. If you emulate them, you don't. There's a big difference. Check your lawyer.