And the only sign of life is the ticking of the pen, introducing characters to memory like old friends.

I feel as though I haven't seen an object until I actually start painting it.

This is what language does: organize the world into manageable, and in some sense artificial, units that can then be inhabited and manipulated.

I think it is important to do what you believe in and ignore the critics.

For me, painting is like meditation.

The purpose of a good education is to show you that there are three sides to a two-sided story.

We were not designed rationally, but are products of a convoluted history.

I had this attitude that it was going to take time for my work to grow. I had to develop skills to do what I wanted and I didn't really expect it was going to happen rapidly.

Just as you can practice three-word sentences or sentences that travel across time zones, so can you practice writing sentences that breathe unshakable conviction.

You’re not necessarily supposed to believe it…You’re just supposed to believe in it.

Belief and knowledge are considered to be two different things. But they are not.

The tonic of success is a marvelous producer as well as stimulant. By the law of mental magnetism one success attracts another, and after we begin to win it is comparatively easy to keep on winning.

Christmas carols always brought tears to my eyes. I also cry at weddings. I should have cried at a couple of my own.

The Grateful Dead are our religion. This is a religion that doesn't pay homage to the God that all the other religions pay homage to.

I let it ring. I wanted to breathe for a few minutes, and I could think of nothing that couldn't wait. Besides, I had paid almost $50 for an answering machine. Let it earn its keep.

Effective leaders are, first and foremost, good teachers. We're in the education business.

I don't think you have to live in the fantasy world of Westeros to have problems with your mother-in-law.

Let us therefore yield ourselves and bow to the authority of the Holy Scriptures, which can neither err nor deceive.

One day I'll be dead and THEN you'll all be sorry.

I like to think of myself as a fiction writer who liked art enough to write about it for a while, and then went on to his fiction.

I believe however that peace is attainable regardless of the Arabs mentality, society or government.