I guess it never is what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophes are always different—unimagined, unprepared for, unknown.

How much sweeter life would be if it all happened in reverse, if, after decades of disappointments, you finally arrived at an age when you had conceded nothing, when everything was possible.

I first started writing fiction in college because I was attracted to beautiful sentences. I loved to read them. I wanted to write them.

Fear is ... a kind of unintentional storytelling that we are all born knowing how to do.

Just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: What will happen next?

But the past is long, and the future is short.

It requires a certain kind of bravery, I suppose, to choose the status quo. There's a certain boldness to inaction.

We were a different kind of Christian, the quiet, reasonable kind, a breed embarrassed by the mention of miracles.

I can write all the way through the morning, when my mind is clear, and there are no distractions.

To some degree we all live with uncertainty. We have no control over the future. Yet we carry on, we persevere, because, I guess, it's the way we're made.

My goal was just to tell the unlikely story in a way that would feel as convincing as possible.

I'm a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.

I do not need drugs to be a genius, do not take a genius to be human, but I need your smile to be happy.

All wealth consists of desirable things; that is, things which satisfy human wants directly or indirectly: but not all desirable things are reckoned as wealth.

The hard way builds solidly a foundation of confidence that cannot be swept away

The devil tryna rip out my soul. Lost my soul.

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.

We can what-if ourselves to death... But what-if never does anybody any good. All any of us ever have...is one thing, and we better make the most of it while we can: What is.

I'm interested in music, not in my image. If someone plays something fantastic, that I could never have thought of, it makes me happy to know it exists.

To green our country, regular people will have to put on hard hats and work boots, roll up their sleeves - and get to work.

I have strong views about South African politics and I still don't feel I need to make public statements.