But personally, I think [sainthood] is not so much the growth of virtue, as simply the replacement of prior vices with an addiction to one's god.

I need words that mean more than they mean, words not just with height and width, but depth and weight and, and other dimensions that I cannot even name.

Events may be horrible or inescapable. Men have always a choice - if not whether, then how, they may endure.

The gods' most savage curses come upon us as answers to our own prayers. Prayer is a dangerous business.

This wasn't prayer anyway, it was just argument with the gods.Prayer, he suspected as he hoisted himself up and turned for the door, was putting one foot in front of the other. Moving all the same.

Well, it is a particular sin to permit grief for what is gone to poison the praise for what blessings remain to us.

It wasn't a case of storming heaven. It was a case of letting heaven storm you.

An effective life is a selfless one

Giant oak trees... have deep root systems that can extend two-and-one-half times their height. Such trees rarely are blown down regardless of how violent the storms may be.

I took some time out for life.

The actor is merely a crude empiricist, a practitioner guided by vague instinct.

If you run a thousand miles a minute, you can expect to wear out a few pairs of shoes.

Many Southern writers must have learned the art of storytelling from listening to oral tales. I did. It gave me the knowledge that the simplest incident can make a story.

Nirvikalpa samadhi or sahaja samadhi is all the way up. You get above the cloud line to the land of eternal snows and it's ecstasy beyond ecstasy.

I start nearly every day with a workout.

It is freezing fit to split a stone.

There is no such thing as an unimportant day.