For most of my life I have known how to control my feelings. If you can control your feelings, you can pretty much control your whole world. It's amazingly effective.

I can't stand family secrets. I think they're such a toxic thing and they always leak out.

Trying to defend religion by invoking science is like claiming that three plus four equals ice cream.

One of the rather unedifying truths about grief is it does block out more or less everything. It has a solipsistic quality to it.

I suppose if I didn't write for a living and it couldn't be published, I would have wanted to write anyway. I think there's something about the act of writing that organizes thoughts and memories.

Never squander money, opportunity or a good wife. They all tend to end up in the hands of someone who won't.

Take back the smile and the night, take it all back, I wish I could.

I wouldn't say that I've had a tough life by any stretch of the imagination.

We must remember how apt man is to extremes--rushing from credulity and weakness to suspicion and distrust.

Hee begins to die, that quits his desires.

Teach children tolerance. No one need surrender his or her own beliefs while extending tolerance to those with other beliefs.

My sisters were going out with artists and poets, and eventually it was the creative world which attracted me.

You just have to make sure the model you're working on does not undersell your product.

There were thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit. There were grief and the ruins, and you were the miracle.

In order for him to believe sincerely in eternity, others had to share in this belief, because a belief that no one else shares is called schizophrenia.