He felt as he always did when he finished a book — queerly empty, let down, aware that for each little success he had paid a toll of absurdity.

I am your number one fan.

He lay back, put his arm over his eyes, and tried to hold onto the anger, because the anger made him feel brave. A brave man could think. A coward couldn't.

Such an ego simply forbade certain lines of thought.

There are lots of guys out there who write a better prose line than I do and who have a better understanding of what people are really like and what humanity is supposed to mean – hell, I know that.

... good advice was sometimes easier to give than receive.

He felt gladness roar through his soul.

A brave man could think. A coward couldn't.

But if you needed to HAVE AN IDEA, boredom could be to a roadblocked novel what chemotherapy was to a cancer patient.

... when editors were flattered, they would sometimes give in on some of their mad ideas.

She was crazy but he needed her. Oh I am in so much trouble he thought, and stared blindly up at the ceiling as the droplets of sweat began to gather on his forehead again.

The important thing is not what they think of me, but what I think of them

Discipline is aimed at formation for a specific end, and that end is determined by our founding narrative.

All men have happiness as their object: there is no exception. However different the means they employ they aim at the same end.

I've always got to change something. All the tracks I've done in the last five years were made in like six different studios. It gets a bit complicated.

If I had to give one piece of advice to incoming college freshmen, I'd say always be true to yourself.

We no longer build fireplaces for physical warmth—we build them for the warmth of the soul; we build them to dream by, to hope by, to home by.

I am much more afraid of my good deeds that please me than of my bad deeds that repel me.

The very fact that you are a complainer, shows that you deserve your lot.

Religious hatreds tend to be merciless and absolute.

I'm glad to be a role model, but beyond that I'm a flawed human being, someone who continues to deal with my body image and what my purpose is on the planet.