I've written 16 children's books and five unpublished novels. Some of the latter were breathtakingly bad.

I was born too late for steam trains and a lazy eye meant I'd never be an astronaut.

It wasn't about believing this or that, it wasn't even about good and evil and right and wrong, it was about finding the strength to bear the discomfort that came with being in the world.

And it occurred to him that there were two parts to being a better person. One part was thinking about other people. The other part was not giving a toss what other people thought.

I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk.

On the fifth day, which was a Sunday, it rained very hard. I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty.

Everyone has learning difficulties, because learning to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult.

No one wants to know how clever you are. They don't want an insight into your mind, thrilling as it might be. They want an insight into their own.

You love someone, you've got to let something go.

For me, disability is a way of getting some extremity, some kind of very difficult situation, that throws an interesting light on people.

From a good book, I want to be taken to the very edge. I want a glimpse into that outer darkness.

Have a loving heart and a beautiful mind.

Reality is crushing. The world is a wrong-sized shoe. How can anyone stand it?

To let the gospel of Jesus shape how we work means to heed the influence of both the psychological idols within our hearts as well as the sociological idols in our culture and profession.

However, we do not lack anti-terrorist laws. I do not believe that the recent London bombs were the result of any deficiencies in our legal system.

No man bears more responsibility for the present worldwide financial crisis and coming depression than Alan Greenspan.

'Vacation' means titillating my taste buds.

I write in the novel's afterword that our recent wars "finish not with victory or defeat but with a calendar draw-down date and a presumption that we shall never be reconciled with the enemy".

I think it is a huge honor to get to go play for the troops who have been working their tails off for several years, some with several tours under their belt.

We are more unhappy to see people ahead of us than happy to see people behind us.

Some beliefs are rigid, like the body of death, impotent in a changing world. Other beliefs are pliable, like the young sapling, ever growing with the upward thrust of life.