I kind of try to resist working a lot. I'm not a very disciplined worker.

One good thing about being a woman is we haven't too many examples yet of what a genius looks like. It could be me.

We don't know the effects we have on each other, but we have them.

We tried not to smile, for smiling only encourages men to bore you and waste your time.

There was not an awareness of pop culture in the household. There was a lot of respect for working hard, and for intellectual and professional achievement.

Maybe that's good to not feel like you have to keep up when there's so much to keep up with right now. It's bottomless.

There's so much writing I could have done and so many ideas that I had and so many things I wanted to work on that I didn't. I like too much having things in my head rather than doing the work.

To go on and on about your soul is to miss the whole point of life. I could say that with more certainty if I knew the whole point of life.

You have to know where the funny is, and if you know where the funny is, you know everything.

Writing fiction is a good way to inhabit other minds, if not other lives.

I do feel it. And I've felt it my whole life, that the supernatural has a role in the world.

You need bravery for compassion. In the picture of your soul, the bravery points are the most beautiful.

Essentially, almost all humans are born with a fear of the unknown. It casts a pall of anxiety which pushes us into the arms of religions and soothsayers and their made-up answers.

Be undeniably good. No marketing effort or social media buzzword can be a substitute for that.

My mom always taught me - you know, little boys listen to their moms too much - that whatever you put into something is what you're going to get out of it.

Muslim delegates concerned about rights in Palestine could have brought their enthusiasm closer to home by addressing the fate of black Christians being slaughtered and enslaved in the Sudan.

You have to believe in what you are saying. Maybe they will like it or not but they cannot contest that what you are saying is true.

Some of these days, Oh, you'll miss me honey

I never Google myself. Only if I want to feel really terrible about myself would I do that.

But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes.

How soon are we broken on the soft pillow of ease! Adam in paradise was overcome, when Job on the dunghill was a conqueror.