I am drawn to any story that makes me want to read from one sentence to the next. I have no other criterion.

That's what books are for... to travel without moving an inch.

Fiction is the only way I know a human being can inhabit the mind of another human being.

Pack a pillow and blanket and see as much of the world as you can.You will not regret it.

A bicultural upbringing is a rich but imperfect thing

Pet names are a persistant remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated. They are a reminder, too, that one is not all things to all people.

Somehow, bad news, however ridden with static, however filled with echoes, always manages to be conveyed.

The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace.

That the last two letters in her name were the first two in his, a silly thing he never mentioned to her but caused him to believe that they were bound together.

It didn't matter that I wore clothes from Sears; I was still different. I looked different. My name was different. I wanted to pull away from the things that marked my parents as being different.

We are all #humans and we all make #mistakes. We #hurt people even if we don't want to.

I am being a minister of light and a destroyer of ignorance and I shall never keep quiet until this horrendous mountain is pulled down in my country, in the church of Christ and in my continent.

On a cooler sun on a primordial earth: "I later learned that biologists, when they are feeling jocose, refer to this as the 'Chinese Resaturant Problem'--because we has a dim sun.

Paradise is a state of being, more than just the name of a suburb or a home.

When I was a little kid, I wanted to be, like, you know, a movie star, you know? Or, I always have interest in movie, you know? Because I like the visual aspect of the movies, et cetera.

If I can put on my album in a car or on my headphones and listen to the whole thing and love it, that's what I'm going to be happy putting out there.

In Eastern lands they talk in flowers, And they tell in a garland their loves and cares; Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers, On its leaves a mystic language bears.

Without Valentine's Day, February would be... well, January.

To decide to film a movie again shot by shot, you must be masochistic to a certain degree because it is a much greater challenge.

I performed for the U.S. troops in Guantanamo Bay. And signed autographs for people who've been gone from America for so long they didn't realize that I'm not famous.

To believe is very dull. To doubt is intensely engrossing. To be on the alert is to live, to be lulled into security is to die.