I'd say my religious life has shaped my worldview; my writing, I'd say too, is an extension of the pulpit...it reaches folks who don't care for organized religion in a different way.

Maybe if we can find time to hug and cherish our families and the people around us, child suicide or college suicide wouldn't be rampant.

I think fiction allows us to sit for a while with people we would rather not meet.

I'm happy if my book makes you want to kiss your family... if we can reconcile with each other no matter where we are on the globe.

After the phone call from The New Yorker, I walked more than a mile to church to thank God. But then I told God I would talk to Him another time and darted home.

I always felt my writing could benefit from the attention of established writers. I knew my work could grow and be better.

You don’t know anything, but I know even less.

For better or for worse, but not for lunch, ...

You can’t colour your world with someone’s paint.

I am going to give you my heart now, " I whispered. "Please don't break it again.

Doubtless you begin to understand how disagreeable it is to me to do a thing arbitrarily, when it is unsatisfactory to others associated with me.

I used to think that prizes were damaging and divisive, until I got one, and now they seem sort of meaningful and important.

Perhaps the reward of the spirit who tries Is not the goal but the exercise.

Stand firm in that which you are.

I completely took off my eyebrows one time for a screen test. I hadn't even gotten the role yet. So you have to have a commitment.

What is Providence for you may be Nemesis for me.