I suppose I do have one embarrassing passion- I want to know what it feels like to care about something passionately.

Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation.

I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done.

Living in a rural setting exposes you to so many marvelous things - the natural world and the particular texture of small-town life, and the exhilarating experience of open space.

You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.

Libraries are what is best about us as a society: open, exciting, rich, informative, free, inclusive, engaging.

One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day.

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder.

An ordinary life examined closely reveals itself to be exquisite and complicated and exceptional, somehow managing to be both heroic and plain.

There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

They had, finally, the only thing anyone really wants in life: someone to hold your hand when you die.

Luck has nothing to do with it, because I have spent many, many hours, countless hours, on the court working for my one moment in time, not knowing when it would come.

Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.

Mind is the partial side of men; the heart is everything.

I'm me on the mound. I like to show my emotion, be real aggressive and give everything I've got for one half inning. I don't have to act. What you see on the mound is what I am in real life.

Letting go. Everyone talks about it like it's the easiest thing. Unfurl your fingers one by one until your hand is open.

You look at your past and things that are unresolved and figure out what you need to do to move forward and fill a role with your family and in your community.

I think the success of any school can be measured by the contribution the alumni make to our national life.

I got this Jesus tattoo on my wrist when I was 18 because I know that it's always going to be a part of me. When I'm playing, it's staring right back at me, saying, 'Remember where you came from.'

The problem with our Blackberry society is that hardly anyone has time anymore to have an unhurried discussion about the long-term developments that will change our lives.