Cities produce in me melancholy or a tension I don't need.

When it comes time to sit down and write the next book, you're deathly afraid that you're not up to the task. That was certainly the case with me after Snow Falling on Cedars.

The status quo was rote memorization and recitation in classrooms thronged with passive children who were sternly disciplined when they expressed individual needs.

My father is a practicing criminal law attorney in the Seattle area.

At one level you're condemned to the voice you have. But within those confines, you have a certain amount of freedom to range among your possible voices.

There are things in this universe that we cannot control, and then there are the things we can. . . . Let fate, coincidence, and accident conspire; human beings must act on reason.

What some people interpret as brooding melancholy is serenity. I don't feel required to grasp all the time.

accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart.

There's a certain nostalgia and romance in a place you left.

It's a brooding melancholy that haunts me.

I'm interested in themes that endure from generation to generation.

This is the secret of life: the self lives only by dying, finds its identity (and its happiness) only by self-forgetfulness, self-giving, self-sacrifice, and agape love.

The moment I felt my life return was when I took a breath and said to him, "No thank you. Were I as perfect as you are demanding, life would be rather boring.

If you looked in magazines ... you never see me in those out-on-the-town pages. I'm either at home playing with the kids or I'm working.

I have a terrible time remembering exactly when my birthday is. Age is totally boring.

You need a relationship with Jesus, and I had never heard that before. So when my mom told me about that, I said, "Okay, let me try this." And so I did.

Any team I go to will get an extremely hard worker, someone who never wants to take a day off, loves to play the game and is dedicated to winning.

Hence money may be dirt, although dirt is not money.

Every other religion is a salvation by self, Christianity is a salvation by Christ.

Those who only know England know not England.

Your mind is your invisible talisman. The letters PMA (positive mental attitude) are emblazoned on one side, and NMA (negative mental attitude) on the other. These are powerful forces.