Everything comes in useful once in a hundred years.

The name we give to something shapes our attitude toward it.

To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.

It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading.

Peace is not won by those who fiercely guard their differences, but by those who with open minds and hearts seek out connections.

I love revision. Where else can spilled milk be turned into ice cream?

As much pleasure as young people get from Twittering and texting, there is no way these activities will nourish their minds and spirits the way literature can.

Reading can be a road to freedom or a key to a secret garden, which, if tended, will transform all of life.

As I look back on what I have written, I can see that the very persons who have taken away my time are those who have given me something to say.

Some folks are natural born kickers. They can always find a way to turn disaster into butter.

I love to read. But I loved to read a lot longer than I started to love writing.

It is what it is. Isn't that how these things always go? They are what they are. We just get to cope.

We know you're strong, but accepting help is its own kind of strength.

It’s a pity that virgins can’t be issued with some kind of barcode. Think of the problems that would have saved you.

If one is looking for cultural testosterone and raging off-the-wall competition in the world of communications, Manhattan was - and is - home plate.

The only passion that guides me is for the truth... I look at everything from this point of view.

Americans are so often thrown by Japan. It looks familiar but, an inch below the surface, it isn't anything like the West at all.

Thinking is difficult and sometimes unpleasant.

Kurt Vonnegut speaking to John Irving while Irving was administering the Heimlich maneuver in response to Vonnegut's uncontrollable coughing..."John,stop- I am not choking. I have emphysema.

It wasn't a dance, but the complete absence of noise and movement, the silence, that brought me in contact with myself.

Many claim I am a photographer of tragedy. In the greater sense I am not, for though I often photograph where the tragic emotion is present, the result is almost invariably affirmative.