Dedication to one's work in the world is the only possible sanctifica-tion. Religion in all its forms is dedication to Someone Else's work not yours.

We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.

What we remember from childhood we remember forever - permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen.

After a certain number of years, our faces become our biographies.

To want to be what one can be is purpose in life.

If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage.

Is there a word more passionate than passion? Obsession, total immersion, the feeling that everything else doesn't matter.

To imagine the unimaginable is the highest use of the imagination

In saying what is obvious, never choose cunning. Yelling works better.

The power of language, it seems to me, is the only kind of power a writer is entitled to.

Traveling is seeing; it is the implicit that we travel by.

Just remember that those who feel profoundly depressed are those whose happiness is likewise intense. What's so wrong with that?

Finishing a good book is like leaving a good friend

All that glisters is not gold.

I love to relax. It's my favorite thing in the world. I am very good at being like a grandma and staying in and watching Game of Thrones or a movie. I think I could do that every night.

Could beauty be beaten out, O youth the cities have sent to strike at each other's strength, it is you who have kept her alight.

One of my core beliefs is that everything happens for a reason and some things just aren't to my taste. All the things that happen in my life are divinely inspired and they happen for a purpose.

As for me, to love you alone, to make you happy, to do nothing which would contradict your wishes, this is my destiny and the meaning of my life.

"Do little pink fairies sing and dance in your world, Peabody?" "Sometimes, when it's very quiet and no one else can see."

There was an inquiry just last week about the new Bette Midler show, and I just didn't want to do that.

San Antonio drives me crazy, but Chicago drives me crazy in a different way.