I'm sure my first nine years have had a powerful influence on the kind of books I write.

The name we give to something shapes our attitude toward it.

To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.

It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading.

Peace is not won by those who fiercely guard their differences, but by those who with open minds and hearts seek out connections.

I love revision. Where else can spilled milk be turned into ice cream?

As much pleasure as young people get from Twittering and texting, there is no way these activities will nourish their minds and spirits the way literature can.

Reading can be a road to freedom or a key to a secret garden, which, if tended, will transform all of life.

As I look back on what I have written, I can see that the very persons who have taken away my time are those who have given me something to say.

Some folks are natural born kickers. They can always find a way to turn disaster into butter.

I love to read. But I loved to read a lot longer than I started to love writing.

Find the connection between you and the universe

Hell had been his Vietnam. It had stamped its mark on him for all eternity, and no amount of denial or self-imposed ignorance was going to change it. Ever.

Poetry creates the myth, the prose writer draws its portrait.

You are most happy when you can give yourself away to others.

Vikrant : "I want to taste honey pot, You are shy, free yourself, like an animal, feel like an animal, they don't know sin. Do they?

Yellow-colored objects appear to be gold

Every dude in your high school wasn't striving to be the best poet because then he'd get all the girls, right? But you could imagine a society in which that were the case.

The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.

You might heckle me now - but when I get home, I've got a chicken in the oven.

If you're overwhelmed, lost, or like you life is out of control, do whatever you can that matters to someone else or ever did to you... it might not help, but it certainly won't hurt.