I am a great believer in variations on the routine.

It took me a long time to learn that mistakes aren't good or bad, they're just mistakes, and you clean them up and go on.

You’ll find your one-in-a-million. But you’re sharp enough to know there’s no point in sludging through the first nine hundred, ninety-nine thousand, and ninety-nine to get to him.

I read about writers' lives with the fascination of one slowing down to get a good look at an automobile accident.

Have you ever felt like you could cry because you know you just heard the most important thing anybody in the world could have spoke at that second?

Mothers smell blood before the wound is given. We see the rent place on the child's arm before the arrow strikes.

When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy.

But they get some comfort out of the made up stories. And if that helps them get along maybe I should not poke fun.

Folks do not want to see a body disappear before their very eyes. Not me at least.

Oh, it's no crime to want and need somebody to love and to be loved by and to go and do what you need to do to have that, but its certainly a pity when you want it so badly you'll let it be anybody.

Hate nobody

I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously.

In a lot of ways, being a writer is a lousy job - grueling, emotionally taxing, terrible hours, no health care - so if it wasn't about love, what would be the point?

Even if I sing like a robot, it is still an emotional robot.

Dating is probably the most important aspect of a single person's life.

Don't back off on traditional values. It's important to show respect and tolerance for others, but they must show the same respect for your values. Tolerance is a two-way street.

Remember, not one penny can we take with us into the unknown land.

I don't think Stoppardian has a precise definition.

Loving someone who doesn't love you back is like hugging a cactus. The tighter you hold on, the more it's going to hurt.