Any parent knows how to be the ideal parent.

The great thing about a short story is that it doesn't have to trawl through someone's whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side.

The world is always changing brightness and hotness and soundness, I never know how it's going to be the next minute.

Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.

I look back one more time. It's like a crater, a hole where something happened.

Ma's still nodding. "You're the one who matters, though. Just you." I shake my head till it's wobbling because there's no just me.

It’s called mind over matter. If we don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” When a bit of me hurts, I always mind.

Books are the air I breathe, so I don't notice the seasons.

If I was made of cake I'd eat myself before somebody else could.

I remember manners, that's when people are scared to make other persons mad.

When I tell her what I’m thinking and she tells me what she’s thinking, our each ideas jumping into the other’s head, like coulouring blue crayon on top of yellow that makes green.

In a world of common nonsense, our best defence is common sense.

Nothing about multiculturalism antagonized Rachel. She liked all kinds of food, clothing, cultural customs, and music. The one thing that held her aloof was a fear of offending through ignorance.

A new acquaintance is like a new book. I prefer it even if bad to a classic.

Once I was gone for a month and I was just miserable, so I flew back from Florida for two hours just to be home and see my cats.

I always told my dad I'd play professional football.

Writing sketches, youre also learning about a journey and characters, and you translate that to bigger things.

I am the entire human race compacted together. I have found that there is no ingredient of the race which I do not possess in either a small way or a large way.

I started to write about science and medicine at the Washington Post, in the early days of the AIDS epidemic.

There are times when the kindness of strangers only makes things worse because one realizes how badly one is in need of kindness and that the only source is a stranger.

An explorer cannot stay at home reading maps other men have made.