Daily life is always extraordinary when rendered precisely. We can unlock our lives with a pencil tip.

Fiction must convince our bodies for it to have any chance of convincing our minds.

Plot joined the expedition unwooed, as a necessary companion. It was not the scout. The scout was a certain mood. I followed that mood, and let the shape of the story flow from that.

The first story I can remember writing, that I truly set down on paper, was a Christmas story that I wrote when I was ten years old.

What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire.

you shall above all things be glad and young For if you're young,whatever life you wear it will become you;and if you are glad whatever's living will yourself become.

I'd rather be happy than right.

And then you've got Lieberman, who is for the war. And thinks the tax cuts could really help. He's basically for people who want to vote for Bush but don't think Bush is Jewish enough.

[The Bible is] a mass of fables and traditions, mere mythology.

I've never done too much inquiry into angels.

I'm blessed, because of my faith, that I don't have to worry about the future because I know who holds my future.

I moved around a lot when I was a child; two of the houses I grew up in have totally disappeared. One was burnt in a riot, and the other was pulled down.

My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears, Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores Of will and judgment.