I never bought the idea of individual genius from which the novel spews forth. It's always an act of curation.

You can't state difference and also state equality. We have to state sameness to understand equality.

As far as I'm concerned, if you want to find out about the last day of WWII or the roots of the Indian Mutiny, get thee to a books catalogue.

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

Time is how you spend your love.

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.

Don't confuse honours with achievement.

Pulchritude--beauty where you would least suspect it, hidden in a word that looked like it should signify a belch or a skin infection.

A woman’s mission centered on home and family — vital spheres of ministry to be sure, but only a slice of the vast mission God originally cast by calling women to rule and subdue the earth.

But Wordsworth is the poet I admire above all others.

Hockey is not a sport - it's a disease.

Boys, baseball is a game where you gotta have fun. You do that by winning.

Going to Catholic school was what fueled me into comedy. The nuns were so brutal so I used to try to make my friends laugh.

I wanted to preserve the old buildings, not to destroy them and build something new.

Go big, or go home. Otherwise, you’re wasting your youth.

Let us not be afraid to see the hatred that consumes the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who sit around us and wait for the moment when their hands will be able to reach our blood.

Nobody can tell you you're wrong for writing a song about how you feel - even if you don't really feel that way.

There's a danger in loving somebody too much, and it's sad when you know it's your heart you can't trust.