I do reread, kind of obsessively, partly for the surprise of how the same book reads at a different point in life, and partly to have the sense of returning to an old friend.

I suspect the most we can hope for, and it's no small hope, is that we never give up, that we never stop giving ourselves permission to try to love and receive love.

Traits don't change, states of mind do.

I actually see myself in all my characters. In order to imagine what it feels like to be another person I have to use my own experiences and responses to the world.

The facts didn't matter. Their stories mattered, and each of their stories belonged to each of them alone.

Had they known at these moments to be quietly joyful? Most likely not. People mostly did not know enough when they were living life that they were living it.

You surely know that in the course of a long marriage it is not unusual for a husband or a wife to develop a crush on someone else.

I'm so interested in the fact that we really don't know anybody. We think we know the people close to us, but we don't, we really don't.

In a way, I'm very interested in writing about Maine, because I think Maine represents its own kind of history. It's the oldest state, and it's the whitest state.

People like to think the younger generation's job is to steer the world to hell. But it's never true, is it? They're hopeful and good - and that's how it should be.

Or maybe, he thought, returning to the boxes, it was part of being Catholic--you were made to feel guilty about everything

Action is within your control, while Emotion is beyond your control!

Life is like a diamond. More you trim it, more it becomes beautiful...

Claiming that you are what you are not will obscure the strengths you do have while destroying your credibility.

I just like doing a lot of different things. People need a reason to get their butts out of bed and do something.

Audacity, and again, audacity, and always audacity.

I enter the world called real as one enters a mist.

We waltzed Lisztlessly.

We cannot lead or draw others to Christ unless we stand closer to Him than they do.

In Texas it's always hot, dry, sunny, not a cloud in the sky.

The hip-hop that we grew up on is dead to a certain degree. I'm trying to keep it alive though, it's alive in the underground, but don't nobody know about it.