Both back when I was acting and now that I'm writing, I've always wanted the same thing out of my career: to be able to get up in the morning and do what I love doing.

Some people are little Chernobyls, shimmering with silent, spreading poison: get anywhere near them and every breath you take will wreck you from the inside out.

I wanted to tell her that being loved is a talent too, that it takes as much guts and as much work as loving; that some people, for whatever reason, never learn the knack

Her forehead was a maze of anxious little grooves, from a lifetime of wondering about whether everyone within range was OK.

A bore or an uggo might manage not to get up anyone's nose, but if a girl's got brains and looks and personality, she's going to piss someone off, somewhere along the way.

Don't you ever feel that - that you just need to get away? From everything? That it's all too much?

I hate nostalgia, it's laziness with prettier accessories.

We think about mortality so little, these days, except to flail hysterically at it with trendy forms of exercise and high-fiber cereals and nicotine patches.

The thing about being a mystery writer, what marks a mystery writer out from a chick lit author or historical fiction writer, is that you always find a mystery in every situation.

I don't do that kind of negativity. If you put your energy into thinking about how much the fall would hurt, you're already halfway down.

I had been right: freedom smelled like ozone and thunderstorms and gunpowder all at once, like snow and bonfires and cut grass, it tasted like seawater and oranges.

The greatest gift for yourself is to study to the highest degree.

Now I know that anytime you see a “no trespassing” sign, it means you’ve got to go in and take a look.

Mountains are moved when we choose positivity, when we choose to exert the power of love, when we chip away at our problems 1 day at a time.

I wanted to capture what language ability tests could never reveal: her intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her speech and the nature of her thoughts.

Who falls for love of God, shall rise a star.

I'm 38 years old and Limp Bizkit is just something I do. If I was a painter, it would just be a type of painting I make.

Things are difficult enough about Iraq without the Federal Government suppressing the truth about Iraq.

In complicated positions, Bobby Fischer hardly had to be afraid of anybody

The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.

How many souls have been blown into hell with the wind of popular applause?