Getting a book published made me feel a little bit sad... I felt driven by the need to write a book, rather than the need to write. I needed to figure out what was important to me as a writer.

...we take comfort in the symmetries we find in life because they suggest a design where there is none.

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.

there are two types of people in the world: those who prefer to be sad among others, and those who prefer to be sad alone.

What about you? Are you happiest and saddest right now that you've ever been?" "Of course I am." "Why?" "Because nothing makes me happier and nothing makes me sadder than you.

She struggled with her sadness, but tried to conceal it, to divide it into smaller and smaller parts and scatter these in places she thought no one would find them.

To hike out alone in the desert; to sleep on the valley floor on a night with no moon, in the pitch black, just listening to the boom of silence: you can't imagine what that's like.

That's what I do. Watch movies and read. Sometimes I even pretend to write, but I'm not fooling anyone. Oh, and I go to the mailbox.

When will you learn that there isn't a word for everything?

I've reached the age where bruises are formed from failures within rather than accidents without.

So many words get lost. They leave the mouthand lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept into the gutter like dead leaves. On rainy days you can hear their chorus rushing past.

Common sense will nearly always stand you in better stead than a slavish adherence to the conventions.

Memory may be pig-headed and want us to follow its whims along the blips and dips of our time line. ( "All the words he always wanted to tell her.")

Like the fragrance of a flower, our actions reveal the beauty of your life.

If you shut up truth, and bury it underground, it will but grow.

I am criticizing a culture that has sold the big lie that 'Mom doesn't matter.'

When you are congruent in your personal life, you will be congruent in your business life.

You take it from me, we are losing the war because we can salute too well.

The Bible and its teachings helped form the basis for the Founding Fathers' abiding belief in the inalienable rights of the individual.

Everything we did we were setting the tone for the world.

A reversal is just anything that's a surprise. It's a way of keeping the audience interested.