Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation.

I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done.

Living in a rural setting exposes you to so many marvelous things - the natural world and the particular texture of small-town life, and the exhilarating experience of open space.

You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.

Libraries are what is best about us as a society: open, exciting, rich, informative, free, inclusive, engaging.

One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day.

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder.

An ordinary life examined closely reveals itself to be exquisite and complicated and exceptional, somehow managing to be both heroic and plain.

There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to.

I don't like hiking with convicts carrying machetes.

The human spirit will not invest itself in a compromise.

Always make time to eat. Always. There’s enough starving children in the world without adding to their number

What if destiny doesn't care?

Yes, man is mortal, but that would be only half the trouble. The worst of it is that he's sometimes unexpectedly mortal—there's the trick!

Until the Donkey tried to clear The Fence, he thought himself a Deer.

Artists are always good for conversation, so long as you want to talk about their art.

Merely stating a truth isn't enough. The truth has to be made vivid, interesting, dramatic. You have to use showmanship.

If you are not feeling good about yourself, then you work out. But you do it for you.

I am an actor and fiction will always be my priority

When life's conditions don't equal your expectations you are unhappy, have no expectations only appreciations (especially in the area of relationships)