I've been very lucky in this second marriage. It's just luck. It's absolute luck. And I can only marvel at it. So many other things could have happened that didn't, so overall I feel blessed.

Novels are fictions and therefore they tell lies, but through those lies every novelist attempts to tell the truth about the world.

There's hope for everyone. That's what makes the world go round.

Stories only happen to those who are able to tell them.

It always stimulates me to discover new examples of my own prejudice and stupidity, to realize that I don't know half as much as I think I do.

One should never underestimate the power of books.

If you're not ready for everything, you're not ready for anything.

Everything can change at any moment, suddenly and forever.

It often happens that things are other than what they seem, and you can get yourself into trouble by jumping to conclusions.

Memory is the space in which a thing happens for a second time.

It seems to me that I will always be happy in the place where I am not.

If you have made mistakes even serious ones there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down.

All fear is imaginary, reality is its antidote.

Still shaking, in the pew, I understood that it isn't the dead we cry for. We cry for ourselves, and I didn't deserve my own pity.

A BOUNTY on the exportation of corn tends to lower its price to the foreign consumer, but it has no permanent effect on its price in the home market.

Creativity asks you to enter realms with uncertain outcomes. People want to create a safe life for themselves so they try to live without fear and they end up killing their creativity in the process.

I don't know who it is," she said; "but somebody cares for me a little. I have a friend.

Every child should have a safe place in their life.

The more you do, the more you fail. The more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get.

Nothing can be fairer, or more noble, than the holy fervor of true zeal.

Great artists make the roads; good teachers and good companions can point them out. But there ain't no free rides, baby.