I grew up in Mississippi being told it was a great place, but not feeling that. When I finally began reading seriously, literature showed me something about where I was from which was worthwhile.

Find what causes a commotion in your heart. Find a way to write about that

I know you can dream your way through an otherwise fine life, and never wake up, which is what I almost did.

Some idiotic things are well worth doing.

Your life doesn't mean what you have or what you get. Its what your'e willing to give up.

If you lose all hope, you can always find it again.

Maturity, as I conceived it, was recognizing what was bad or peculiar in life, admitting it has to stay that way, and going ahead with the best of things.

If loneliness is the disease, the story is the cure.

Our ex-wifes always harbour secrets about us that make them irresistable. Until, of course, we remember who we are and what we did and why we are not married anymore.

Some people want to be bank presidents. Other people want to rob banks.

The art of living your life has a lot to do with getting over loss. The less the past haunts you, the better.

The blinking of eyes is an involuntary reflex action, provided they eyes are not watching your beauty.

Action will remove the doubts that theory cannot solve.

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.

Courage is the essential element in any great public man or woman.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

Faced with the pain of freedom, man begs for his shackles.

It's nice to be nice to the nice.

I think Guantanamo, has been synonymous with the staining of American values and American legal tradition.

The spirit of poetry, like all other living powers, must of necessity circumscribe itself by rules, were it only to unite power with beauty.

To go to Mass is to go to Heaven.