I had an experience a few years ago where I was on a plane in which one of the engines went out. I couldn't even remember my name. I was just repeating the word no over and over.

I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character in half, on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he's made of sugar.

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.

Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial.

Developing our sympathetic compassion is not only possible but the only reason for us to be here on earth.

According to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving. Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.

It's a big world, and I really like it.

Character is that sum total of moments we can't explain.

The generalizing writer is like the passionate drunk, stumbling into your house mumbling: I know I'm not being clear, exactly, but don't you kind of feel what I'm feeling?

Kindness, it turns out, is hard - it starts out all rainbows and puppy dogs, and expands to include . . . well, EVERYTHING.

Lifeless life is the very thing Jesus came to rescue us from.

God has enough timeless resources for all mankind.

I still will sit down at the piano and play when I am wrestling with something emotionally or just want to move into the musical world.

He's a little deceiving. He doesn't have a real good arm slot as far as trying to pick the ball up out of his hand. He made some pretty good pitches when he had to.

I just enjoy translating, it's like opening one's mouth and hearing someone else's voice emerge.

To marry and have children is the ideal life for a woman. What career could ever be as fine? To give the world splendid men and women-isn't that the noblest thing a woman could possibly do?

Time passes cold and indifferent over us; it knows nothing of our joys or sorrows; it leads us with ice-cold hand deeper and deeper into the labyrinth.

There are people who are virtuous only in a piece-meal way; virtue is a fabric from which they never make themselves a whole garment.

If I read too much or know too much it's not because I want to talk about it, it's only because it's interesting for me.

Get rid of this bunkum about the 'carnal Christian'. Forget it! If you're carnal, you're not saved.