Hunger of the body is altogether different from the shallow, daily hunger of the belly. Those who have known this kind of hunger cannot entirely love, ever again, those who have not.

Hope is a renewable option: If you run out of it at the end of the day, you get to start over in the morning.

If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life.

Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can't even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain.

Finally, cooking is good citizenship. It's the only way to get serious about putting locally raised foods into your diet, which keeps farmlands healthy and grocery money in the neighborhood.

We came from Bethlehem, Georgia bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle.

Maybe life doesn't get any better than this, or any worse, and what we get is just what we're willing to find: small wonders, where they grow.

Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

It's what you do that makes your soul.

Pain reaches the heart with electrical speed, but truth moves to the heart as slowly as a glacier.

A sin confessed, a guilt cleared by grace.

I have stressed this distinction because it is an important one. It defines the fundamental difference between probability and statistics: the former concerns predictions based on fixed probabilities

I thought I was going to be like Kevin Spacey in college.

Pros like myself played football not for money or glory, but for the simplest reason: the love of the game.

Every cell in your body is seeking fulfillment through joy, beauty, love and appreciation.

Regardless of whether or not you belong to a majority religion, in the United States you may not impose your theology on civil law.

I've always had good mechanics and stuff like that.

Actually everybody has a story, a fairy tale in their heart that they adhere to.

If you do not see any good in these persons, then say nothing, but if you do see some, speak about it to honor God in them because all good proceeds from Him.

I don't yet know what style will be required for my next novel, but my sense is that each book will involve a new relationship to language.