I don't think there is a hidden purpose to the universe that you have to puzzle out.

We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they all have learned to live together in the same box.

Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.

If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience.

It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and our air force has to have a bake-sale to buy a bomber.

The examined life is no picnic.

The winding down of summer puts me in a heavy philosophical mood.

Ignorance and power and pride are a deadly mixture, you know.

All I ever needed to know I learned in kindergarten. Share everything ... Don't hit people ... Clean up your own mess.

Why is love easy? I don’t know. And the raccoons don’t say.

Love is a fabric which never fades, no matter how often it is washed in the water of adversity and grief.

Great novels are always a little more intelligent than their authors.

What exactly was the difference? He wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?

I was on the far side of the dream.

Conforming is not cool. Embracing who you are and what makes you different is actually what’s really cool.

Once you master how your own consciousness operates, anything can be desired and achieved.

Being President is a little bit like riding a tiger. You have to keep riding, or else you will be swallowed up by it!

Haste in every business brings failures.

The mass believes that it has the right to impose and to give force of law to notions born in the café.

Everybody has bad at-bats -- except McCutchen.

I always try to create conflict and drama in my books; it's the engine of the novel.