History is a set of skills rather than a narrative.

I dislike pastiche; it attracts attention to the language only.

It is the absence of facts that frightens people: the gap you open, into which they pour their fears, fantasies, desires.

Write a book you'd like to read. If you wouldn't read it, why would anybody else? Don't write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book's ready.

Fortitude. ... It means fixity of purpose. It means endurance. It means having the strength to live with what constrains you.

Feminism hasn't failed, it's just never been tried.

Truth can break the gates down, truth can howl in the street; unless truth is pleasing, personable and easy to like, she is condemned to stay whimpering at the back door.

If you have a good story idea, don't assume it must form a prose narrative. It may work better as a play, a screenplay or a poem. Be flexible.

The things you think are the disasters in your life are not the disasters really. Almost anything can be turned around: out of every ditch, a path, if you can only see it.

I didn't cry much after I was 35, but staggered stony-faced into middle age, a handkerchief still in my bag just in case.

You're only young once, they say, but doesn't it go on for a long time? More years than you can bear.

How poor are they that have no patients! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?'""Shakespeare isn't going to save you this time, Superman. Your time's run out."!

Quit trying to change others. You haven’t done such a great job on yourself – yet.

Man’s mind is a coast of great monuments, the source of wild and complex dreams and accomplishments that physical eyes have not seen.

A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.

Wise leaders understand that the single greatest determinant of whether followers will ever own a vision deeply is the extent to which whose followers believe the leader will own it.

The sun's down and the moon's pretty - it's time to ramble.

It is important to keep your head up and follow what you believe is right.

Maybe I'm too busy being yours to fall for somebody new.

I believe that the faith heritage of this country is actually a very important part of America's culture.

There are people whom one loves immediately and forever. Even to know they are alive in the world with one is quite enough.