I always feel bad laughing at people who act crazy. But sometimes the things they do are so damned funny. I wonder what I'd look like if I slipped a few notches on the mental-health index.

The bottom line is that my life has already almost slipped away from me. I have two choices: I can end it or I can fight like hell to save it.

It's enough just to speak when spoken to, to give some minimal reaction to a stimulus. But to actually be the stimulus doesn't even occur to me.

The body remembers what your mind forgets.

In these flashes of insight, I understand for a moment that one of the great dividends of darkness is an increased sensitivity to the light.

The infinity of this vacancy, the pervasive pain, the longing for some spirit, some lightness, some joy - that's all that is left.

Psychologists call it "free-floating" anxiety. What contradictory words. Anxiety doesn't free-float. It stalks. It attacks. It lands on you with a thud.

Some struggles are so solitary that they drown in words.

Sometimes hell has no words.

Serving others prepares you to lead others.

But the thing is, a wife is a wife and you can't ditch her like a worn shirt after a life.

There is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are.

I ran [for presidency] because I knew what trouble our country was in.

Writers, and particularly female writers, have to fight for the conditions they need to work.

The mind's eye is perhaps no better fitted for the full radiance of truth, than is the body's for that of the sun.

There's always that one person that you always go back to.

'A Wrinkle in Time' was almost never published. You can't name a major publisher who didn't reject it.

A gossip is someone who's the knife of the party.

My favorite Elton John song is "Daniel"; my son is named Daniel and he's partly named after my wife's father, but also partly named after that song.