Christmas is the season I use to clock failure in life. It stops time, as it were, on the year - where you are in it, where you are in your travail unto the grave.

Life is a sandwich of activity between two periods of bed-wetting.

Even if you're the worst writer in the world, at least you'll have the evidence.

Writing books is a nice retreat. There's nothing quite like diving into a book for a few hours. That is a big time vacation.

That's part of fiction, creating a world better than the one you live in.

Cholesterol to go with alcohol; all the bad things in English-speaking life end in -ol.

Is a gesture of charity genuine or is it a kind of deep moral tax write-off?

I knew I was supposed to be a writer; I had made that declaration in the closet of my soul.

I don't know any more about America than one knows being trapped in it.

Conversations are the most direct way to connect with people.

Heavy booze is a big time vacation, but you come back with a headache.

If you are truly able to walk in the shoes of Christ, the very label of religion called Christianity would disappear from the face of earth.

It was like Percy had faced death before, like he knew about grief. What mattered was listening. You didn’t need to say you were sorry. The only thing that helped was moving on—moving forward.

There are two ways of meeting difficulties: you alter the difficulties or you alter yourself to meet them.

The chief element of happiness is this: to want to be what you are.

To throw oneself to the side of the oppressed is the only dignified thing to do in life.

I don't mind if my life goes in the service of the nation. If I die, every drop of my blood will invigorate the nation.

A culture of discipline is not a principle of business, it is a principle of greatness.

My mother-in-law buys her coats in a carper shop. She wears a 9x12.

See a flame in a spark, a tree in a seed. See great things in little beginnings.

You know you're getting fat when your socks don't fit.