I have never begun a novel which wasn't going to stretch me further than I had ever stretched before.

To know you will be lonely is not the same as being lonely.

People do not love those whose eyes show that they are somewhere else

The declared meaning of a spoken sentence is only its overcoat, and the real meaning lies underneath its scarves and buttons.

I'm interested in where we are, where we're going, where we've come from.

Swimming always cleans your soul

It's like standing on the edge of a cliff. This is especially true of the first draft. Every day you're making up the earth you're going to stand on.

Good writing of course requires talent, and no one can teach you to have talent.

Nostalgia is something we think of as fuzzy. But it's pain. Pain concerning the past.

My greatest pleasure is to invent. My continual mad ambition is to make something true and beautiful that never existed in the world before.

I'm always the one with the activist friends. I've been an activist very little.

The human spirit’s unquenchable drive for originality and compulsion for creating art is the compelling force of our humanity.

She played me with a bad hand, and I fell for it every time.

All my life, my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name.""Love is when you meet someone who tells you something new about yourself

I knew that it was my only shot to be taken seriously in the recording industry, because it's fast and broad.

I enjoy storytelling. I like to write it, I like to direct it, I like to act in it, I like to produce it. I like to be around storytellers. That's what excites me.

Nature neither gives nor expects mercy.

The wisdom of the world, while in many cases very valuable, is most valuable when it humbly bows to the wisdom of God.

I just don’t want to get hit, that’s all. I want to win without getting hit.

I also have a degree in marriage, family and child counseling - I'm a therapist.

Isn’t it funny to think that this magnificent piece of matter is in a state of decay? Really, can you think of any other living thing that looks this glorious as it’s dying?