I am marked like a road map from head to toe with my repressions. You can travel the length and breadth of my body over superhighways of shame and inhibition and fear.

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you - it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists.

He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.

You can no more make someone tell the truth than you can force someone to love you.

Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.

The horror of being caged has lost its thrill.

Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.

I have a slogan I use when I get anxious writing, which happens quite a bit: ‘the ordeal is part of the commitment.’ It’s one of my mantras. It makes a lot of things doable.

When the whole world doesn't believe in God, it'll be a great place.

Because that is when you love somebody - when you see them being game in the face of the worst. Not courageous. Not heroic. Just game.

Why not be oneself? That is the whole secret of a successful appearance. If one is a greyhound why try to look like a Pekingese?

I have dreams of becoming a professional pastry chef and having a little bakery - that's how much I love baking. I love to cook in general, but my heart lies in desserts.

God’s plan and His ways of working out His plan are frequently beyond our ability to fathom and understand. We must learn to trust when we don’t understand.

When you look closely people are so strange & so complicated that they're actually beautiful.

Let us work in partnerships between rich and poor to improve the opportunities of all human beings to build better lives.

Beneath the blossoms with a pot of wine, No friends at hand, so I poured alone; I raised my cup to invite the moon, Turned to my shadow, and we became three.

My whole thing is just being a part of good music.

Another good thing about gossip is that it is within everybody's reach, And it is much more interesting than any other form of speech.

As long as there's anybody that's poor or middle class, there will not be satisfaction that there are rich people. Not 'til we get rid of all the rich can we say we have finished the job.

...And i can't get you out of my mind, God knows how hard I've tried.