I am still trying to find out things. And I inevitably tell myself the story in different ways every time I think about it.

To read is to cover one's face. And to write is to show it.

You can say that literature is about topics like love, death, and all that, but I think there is only one topic that applies to all literature and that is belonging.

If you write, and you are really alone (writing is a lonely thing), you learn to be alone without suffering. When you read, you also learn to do this. When you write, you deal with things.

I was going to be a memory when I grew up.

I knew little, but at least I knew that: no one could speak for someone else. That although we might want to tell other people's stories, we always end up telling our own.

You're looking for something, I don't know what I'm looking for, but I'm looking. Writing is a lot about that. When you write a poem. When you write a novel.

Everything has been said and everything has been done, but you still feel like you are looking for something.

For me, writing is a way of finding out about things I didn't know before I began writing.

When you read a novel, you know what to expect because you've been reading novels for a long time.

You are told that you have to eliminate un-useful sentences, but as a writer you know how important details are.

Happiness is a temporary recurring human experience.

we are houses eaten by rivers because we do not know their smell.

Time is a very precious gift- so precious that it is only given to us moment by moment.

A domain exits where concepts can't go; so leave them on the doorstep to enter.

A flame burns brightest just before it goes out.

I'm not worried about the Third World War. That's the Third World's Problem.

Great challenges confront our great nation. We seek to meet them by rising to the task, not by defining our country down.

If our presidents, or potential presidents, don't know this or don't articulate [an America ideal], that's a blown opportunity. The president can teach as well as lead.

In the end, we decide if we're remembered for what happened to us or for what we did with it.

I write because I can't imagine not writing.