I like writing, but I write for self-improvement more than I do for money.

The biggest impact my father had on my life was teaching the importance of literacy.

For someone who loves literature, and all books on principle, being asked to name three titles over a half century of serious reading is akin to asking one to recall their three favorite sunsets.

My father thought of himself as a tradesman. A craftsman.

My father valued patriotism above all other social obligations, but he had his own particular interpretation of just how true patriotism was meant to function.

You didnt grow up in the shadow of John Steinbeck. He put you on his shoulders and gave you all the light you wanted.

My father believed, like Pericles, that a mans genius could be easily judged by the number of unenlightened fools set in phalanx against his ideas.

Plot makes the character just as history makes the man.

I started writing serious books so late because I knew Id be accused of riding on my fathers coattails.

Since I cant write the greatest American novel, Im going to write the longest American novel.

Love is a relative emotional quality

The strength we find within ourselves gives us endurance and perseverance power.

Rethink change: Make change management irrelevant through Appreciative Leadership Innovation focused Expectations (ALIFE)

God never ends anything on a negative

Where the criminals cover their crimes by making them legal.

I literally cannot remember one joke.

In fact, once he is motivated no one can change more completely than the man who has been at the bottom. I call myself the best example of that.

On any given day, in any given moment, something could happen that opens up for you an entirely new path. Be still, be alert, be ready.

The way you get better is putting words on the page and getting them behind you.

Dreams provide a kind of wisdom of the heart, an echoing voice of a profound human sensitivity too often lost to us in the reasonable life of days.